Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 3 oranges; 1 cup pineapple, cut into small pieces; 1 tumbler preserved white cherries; 1 lb Malaga grapes; coconut, for sprinkling; sugar, to taste

Why it works: Pineapple and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and segment the oranges.
Cut the pineapple into small pieces.

Assemble and serve

Combine the oranges, pineapple, preserved cherries, and Malaga grapes in a bowl.
Sprinkle coconut on top.
Sweeten the salad to taste.

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 + coconuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together651 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + coconuttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together584 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).