Skip to main content
Dessert

Pineapple Salad

A chilled fruit salad of pineapple, cherries, strawberries, and a mayonnaise or wine dressing, served in a hollowed pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the top off the pineapple about one inch deep and scoop out the inside.

  2. In a bowl, combine the diced pineapple, halved cherries, and halved strawberries.

Dress and chill

  1. If using mayonnaise, mix it with the whipped cream.

  2. Add the dressing to the fruit mixture and stir gently.

  3. Chill the mixture and fill the hollowed pineapple just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the pineapple salad surrounded by lettuce leaves and garnish with sweet peas.

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 + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pineapple + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Pineapple + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Wine + peastop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 base and the hollow shell that holds the salad.
Cherries
Add sweetness and a firm, bright bite to the fruit mix.
Strawberries
Add sweetness, color and soft texture to the fruit mix.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creamy body to the dressing, binding the fruit together.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds a smooth, airy richness.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, wine, cream, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipesPineapple JellyPineapple Jelly39 recipes