Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 2 oranges; 1 apple; 1 banana (optional); 3 slices of fresh pineapple; ½ pound of Malaga grapes; 1 dozen maraschino cherries; ½ dozen English walnuts; French dressing; Crisp lettuce leaves

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

Prepare the fruit

Cut the oranges, apple, banana, and pineapple into small pieces.
Remove the skin and seeds from the grapes.
Halve the maraschino cherries and quarter the walnuts.

Assemble and serve

Mix all the fruits and nuts together.
Serve on crisp lettuce leaves.
Pour French dressing over the salad and add extra walnuts and cherries.

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).
Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Provide juicy segments and natural sweetness with a bright citrus flavour.
Malaga grapes: Add juicy sweetness and a firm, cool bite to the salad.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft fruit.
French dressing: Adds moisture and a tangy, acidic flavour that ties the fruit together.

Swap the banana

The recipe marks banana as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, apple, pineapple, grape, walnut, lettuce):

Cranberryfits better
Pearfits better
Figfits better
Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, apple, pineapple, grape, walnut, lettuce. 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.