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Dessert

Fruit Salad with Prunes

A fruit salad made with stewed prunes, pineapple, orange, banana, served on lettuce with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and banana 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 with Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew prunes until tender and remove stones.

  2. Add diced pineapple, shredded orange, and sliced banana. Mix well.

Serve

  1. Pile in a bowl of crisp lettuce.

  2. Serve with dressing.

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 + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main body, sweetness and soft chewy texture once stewed.
Pineapple
Adds bright acidity and juicy texture that contrasts with the soft prunes.
Orange
Adds citrus acidity and aroma, lifting the sweetness of the fruit.
Banana
Adds soft body and natural sweetness, helping bind the fruit mixture.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Beetrootfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, orange, banana. 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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