Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: Malaga grapes; chopped nut meats; finely chopped celery; tart apples; coarse sea salt; lettuce leaves; mayonnaise dressing; whipped cream

Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the skins from the Malaga grapes, cut them in halves, and remove the seeds.
Add an equal amount of chopped nut meats, finely chopped celery, and tart apples.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Serve

Place the mixture on lettuce leaves.
Serve with mayonnaise dressing mixed with whipped cream just 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.

Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Grape + lettucetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together349 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Grape + celerytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Malaga grapes: Provide the sweet, juicy base of the salad.
Chopped nut meats: Add crunch and a rich, toasty contrast to the soft fruit.
Finely chopped celery: Adds a crisp, fresh crunch that contrasts with the softer fruit.
Tart apples: Add acidity and a firm texture that brightens the sweet grapes.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that coats the fruit and nuts.
Whipped cream: Lightens the dressing and makes it richer and smoother.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, apple, lettuce, cream):

Avocadofits better
Figfits about as well
Pearfits about as well
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, apple, lettuce, 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.