Name: Banana Salad
Ingredients: 2 bananas; ½ cup sweet sherry; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; whipped cream

Why it works: Banana and sherry work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

2 bananas
½ cup sweet sherry
2 teaspoons lemon juice
whipped cream

Directions

Slice the bananas lengthwise into thick slices.
Arrange the slices on a dish to form a hollow center.
Mix the sherry with sugar and lemon juice, then pour over the bananas.
Chill until ice cold.
Fill the center with whipped cream, piled high.

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 + sherrytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together117 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,134 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,273 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,038 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Banana + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).