Name: Pineapple Salad
Ingredients: slices of pineapple; French dressing; lettuce leaves; cream cheese; maraschino cherries

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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate the pineapple slices in French dressing.
Place a slice of marinated pineapple on a lettuce leaf on each salad plate.
Scatter cream cheese, passed through a potato ricer, around the pineapple.
Place a maraschino cherry in the center of each pineapple slice.

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 + cream cheesetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together250 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Lettuce + cream cheesetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).