Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 3 cups white grapes; 2 medium-sized apples; ¼ pound candied cherries; 1 cup celery; salad dressing

Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Remove seeds from the white grapes and cut them.
Quarter the apples and cut them into small pieces.
Chop the candied cherries and celery into small pieces.

Assemble

Mix all the ingredients together and add salad dressing.

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.

Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Grape + celerytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

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