Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 4 oranges; 4 bananas; 1-2 cups sliced pineapple; 1 cup chopped walnuts; sugar to taste

Why it works: Banana and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

Cut the oranges in half and save the rinds.
Chop the oranges, bananas, and pineapple into small pieces.

Assemble

Mix the chopped fruits with walnuts and sugar.
Fill the orange halves with the fruit mixture.

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.

Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together733 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Their juice and pulp add moisture and bright acidity, and the rinds serve as edible cups.
Bananas: Their soft flesh adds sweetness and a creamy texture to the mixture.
Pineapple: Its juice adds sweetness and acidity, bringing a tangy contrast to the mellow fruits.
Walnuts: They add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft fruit.