Name: Pineapple and Cheese Salad
Ingredients: slices of pineapple; lettuce leaves; slices or pieces of cheese; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Pineapple and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 271 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pineapple and Cheese Salad

Ingredients

slices of pineapple
lettuce leaves
slices or pieces of cheese
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Place slices of pineapple on lettuce leaves.
Cover with slices or pieces of cheese.
Serve with mayonnaise 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.

Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together271 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pineapple + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Lettuce + cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together614 recipes

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