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Dessert

Marshmallow Salad

A chilled salad of marshmallows, Malaga grapes, nuts, pineapple, and a creamy dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Marshmallow Salad

serves about 25 people

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut marshmallows into small pieces and combine with grapes, nuts, and pineapple in a large bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix the beaten egg, mustard, lemon juice, pineapple juice, and dissolved corn starch.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then fold in the whipped cream.

Combine and chill

  1. Pour the dressing over the marshmallow mixture and stir gently to combine.

  2. Chill 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. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + corntop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Nuts + corntop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and gives it body.
Corn starch
Thickens the dressing when heated with liquid, giving it a smooth, stable texture.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet marshmallow and fruit flavors.
Marshmallows
Provide sweetness and a soft, chewy texture in the salad.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing until thick while stirring constantly. Egg and corn starch thicken only with steady heat and stirring. Undercooked dressing stays thin, and overheated egg can curdle or scramble, so constant stirring over medium heat prevents lumps and keeps it smooth.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, pineapple, egg, mustard, lemon, corn, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, pineapple, egg, mustard, lemon, corn, 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.

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