Name: Colorado Salad
Ingredients: red cherries; white cherries; oranges; bananas; French dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Colorado Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Remove stones from red and white cherries and cut them in halves lengthwise.
Remove pulp from oranges.
Peel bananas and cut them into ½ inch cubes.

Combine and serve

Mix equal quantities of each fruit and marinate with French dressing.
Serve in cups made from lettuce leaves.

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.

Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together373 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries: Provide the main fruit body and sweet flavor in the salad.
Oranges: Add juicy, bright citrus flavor and moisture to the mix.
Bananas: Add soft texture and mild sweetness to the fruit mixture.
French dressing: Coats the fruit and adds acidity and seasoning during marinating.