Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: equal quantities of sliced apples; sliced bananas; sliced pineapple; sliced oranges; coarse-ground pine nuts; almonds; mayonnaise dressing; candied cherries

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

Peel and slice the apples, bananas, pineapple, and oranges.
Combine the sliced fruits in a bowl.
Sprinkle with coarse-ground pine nuts and almonds.
Serve with mayonnaise dressing and garnish with candied cherries.
Avoid using canned fruits for this salad.

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).
Pine + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together176 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together530 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Firm fruit that provides the main body and fresh, crisp bite of the salad.
Bananas: Soft fruit that adds creamy sweetness and moisture to the mixture.
Pineapple: Juicy fruit that adds moisture and bright, tangy sweetness.
Oranges: Juicy segments that add moisture and citrusy acidity.
Pine nuts: Add a crunchy, toasted texture that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and richness that coats the fruit and binds the flavours.

Swap the nuts

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

Pistachiofits better
Chestnutfits better
Brazil nutfits better
Nutsthe original

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