Name: Pineapple Salad
Ingredients: 1 can sliced pineapple; 1 package Neufchatel cheese; maraschino cherries; lettuce; salad dressing; whipped cream

Why it works: Pineapple and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 271 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Place slices of pineapple on a lettuce leaf.
Pour a little salad dressing around the edge of the pineapple.
Grate a few flakes of cheese over the pineapple.
Place the cherries around the pineapple and fill the cavity with whipped cream.

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.

Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together271 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pineapple + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,655 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together614 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,574 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple: Provides the sweet, juicy fruit base that the rest of the salad is built on.
Neufchatel cheese: Adds a mild, creamy richness that balances the sweetness of the fruit.
Whipped cream: Fills the pineapple cavity, adding a light, airy texture and extra richness.
Salad dressing: Adds tang and moisture around the edge of the pineapple.