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Salad

Pineapple and Grapefruit Salad

A fruit salad of pineapple, grapefruit, cherries, topped with mayonnaise and whipped cream, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and grapefruit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pineapple and Grapefruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Arrange lettuce leaves on individual plates.

  2. Place a round slice of chilled, drained pineapple in the center of each plate.

  3. Arrange grapefruit sections on top of the pineapple, conforming to its shape.

  4. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.

Dress and serve

  1. Surround the fruit with mayonnaise mixed with a little whipped cream just before serving.

  2. Place three cherries in the center of the fruit.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lettuce + grapefruittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pineapple + grapefruittop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Lettuce + pineappletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Provides a firm, sweet-tart fruit base that holds the salad's shape.
Grapefruit
Adds bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the pineapple and dressing.
Mayonnaise
Supplies fat and creaminess for a rich, smooth coating around the fruit.
Whipped cream
Lightens the mayonnaise, giving the dressing a softer, airier texture.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, grapefruit, sugar, cream):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, grapefruit, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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