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Dessert

Ginger Ale Salad

A fruit salad made with ginger ale, fruit, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Ale Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

Make the salad

  1. Heat the pineapple juice with sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Once cool, add the gelatine, then stir in the ginger ale and fruit.

  3. Pour into a mold and place on ice to congeal.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Ginger + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Ginger + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the lemon juice and ginger ale.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the sweetness.
Ginger ale
Provides liquid and a light ginger flavour and fizz.
Apples
Add crisp texture and fresh body to the set salad.
Pineapple
Adds sweet, tropical fruit flavour and juice to the base.

The step that matters

Once cool, add the gelatine, then stir in the ginger ale and fruit.. Gelatine must be cool but still liquid when added, or it may set unevenly. Adding carbonated ginger ale after the gelatine has cooled helps preserve its fizz and keeps the mixture from foaming over.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, lemon, sugar, apple, pineapple. 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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