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Dessert

Fruit Salad

Fruit salad with pineapple, grapes, cherries, pecans, celery, and a creamy egg-based dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine pineapple, grapes, white cherries, pecans, celery, and maraschino cherries in a large bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, boil egg yolks, sugar, butter, mustard, salt, paprika, and vinegar together.

  2. While hot, add beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  3. Once cool, stir in port wine and whipped cream.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the fruit mixture and toss gently to combine.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Pecans + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

  4. Pineapple + pecanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Grape + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they cook and set.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the fruit and dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds a smooth, creamy moisture.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Mustard
Adds sharp, savory flavor that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Port wine
Contributes sweetness and a deep, aromatic flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble when overheated, leaving lumps. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly so the mixture thickens smoothly into a custard-like base.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, grape, pecans, egg, sugar, butter, mustard):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, grape, pecans, egg, sugar, butter, mustard. 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.

More fruit salad recipes

Dressing 41Ambrosia 24Pineapple 21Grape 15Frozen 10Mixed 8 See all 267 →

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