Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint strawberries; 1 pint Malaga grapes; ½ pint English walnuts; 2 oranges; 1 small pineapple; whipped cream

Why it works: Grape and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 709 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut strawberries and grapes in halves.
Chop walnuts into bits.
Slice oranges and pineapple.

Assemble and serve

Stir all ingredients together or layer them in a dish.
Serve with whipped cream.

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.

Grape + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,427 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries: Add sweetness, juiciness and fresh flavor to the salad.
Malaga grapes: Add sweetness and juicy texture to the salad.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a nutty flavor against the soft fruit.
Oranges: Add acidity and citrus aroma that brightens the sweeter fruits.
Pineapple: Adds tartness and juiciness, contrasting with the sweeter fruit.
Whipped cream: Adds richness and a creamy fat that softens the fruit's acidity.