Name: Pineapple and Nut Salad
Ingredients: 1 can pineapple; 1 cup English walnuts; whipped cream or mayonnaise for serving

Why it works: Pineapple and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Pineapple and Nut Salad

Ingredients

1 can pineapple
1 cup English walnuts
whipped cream or mayonnaise for serving

Directions

Drain the juice from the pineapple.
Cut the pineapple into pieces about the size of an English walnut.
Combine the pineapple pieces with the walnuts.
Serve with whipped cream or mayonnaise.

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 + walnuttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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 moisture and a sweet, acidic flavor that balances the walnuts.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter nutty flavor and texture.