Name: Pine-apple Ice
Ingredients: 1 pineapple, peeled and pounded; 1 to 2 lemons, juiced; ½ cup water; sugar, to taste

Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pine-apple Ice

Ingredients

1 pineapple, peeled and pounded
1 to 2 lemons, juiced
½ cup water
sugar, to taste

Directions

Pound the peeled pineapple and pass it through a sieve.
Add the juice of 1 or 2 lemons, ½ cup of water, and sugar to taste.
Strain the mixture into a freezer.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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: Supplies most of the flavor, juice and natural sweetness.
Lemons: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and sharpens the flavor.
Sugar: Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point, keeping the texture softer.