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Fruit Salad

Fruit salad with grapes, walnuts, pineapple, marshmallows, and a creamy lemon yolk dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix in ½ cup milk until well blended.

  3. Add the juice of 1 lemon and a pinch of salt.

  4. Whip ¾ pint of heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

  5. Let the egg mixture cool, then gently fold in the whipped cream.

Assemble and chill

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grapes, walnuts, pineapple, and marshmallows.

  2. Pour the dressing over the fruit mixture and stir gently.

  3. Let the salad stand for 2 to 4 hours before serving.

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.

  1. Grape + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Grape + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,682 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Pineapple + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set with the lemon and milk.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it lightens the dressing and adds a smooth, creamy body.
Marshmallows
Soften as they stand in the dressing, adding sweetness and a chewy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet dressing and balances the richness.
White grapes
Provide juicy sweetness and a fresh bite against the softer ingredients.

The step that matters

Cool the egg mixture before folding in the cream. If the cooked egg mixture is still warm, it can deflate the whipped cream and thin the dressing. Cooling it first keeps the cream light and stable.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, walnut, pineapple, egg, milk, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, walnut, pineapple, egg, milk, cream. 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.

More fruit salad recipes

Dressing 41Ambrosia 24Pineapple 21Grape 15Frozen 10Mixed 8 See all 267 →

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