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Dessert

Pineapple and Strawberries

A chilled fruit salad of pineapple pulp and strawberries served in a pineapple shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,664 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple and Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Cut off the top of the pineapple and trim the bottom to make it stand upright.

  2. Scoop out the pulp, discarding the core.

Make the salad

  1. Mix the pineapple pulp with halved strawberries, orange juice, and sugar.

  2. Return the mixture to the pineapple shell and chill thoroughly.

  3. Garnish with leaves from the crown.

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. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Forms the serving shell and provides the main fruit flesh and sweet, tangy flavor.
Strawberries
Add sweetness, color, and a soft, juicy texture to the salad.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Chill thoroughly. Chilling lets the juices and flavors meld and firms the fruit so the salad tastes fresh and holds its shape when served.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, sugar. 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.

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