Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 1 pineapple, grated; 1 cup dates, chopped; Whipped cream; Oranges, sliced; Lettuce leaves; Malaga grapes, peeled and seeded; Fruit salad dressing; Rose leaves for garnish

Why it works: Pineapple and grape 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

Assemble

Slice oranges and arrange them on lettuce leaves.
Sprinkle a layer of grated pineapple over the oranges.
Add a layer of chopped dates on top of the pineapple.
Place peeled and seeded Malaga grapes on the salad.

Dress and serve

Cover with fruit salad dressing and serve very cold.
Garnish with rose leaves if desired.

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 + grapetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together271 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Orange + rosetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together876 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple: Adds juicy sweetness and bright acidity as the main fruit layer.
Dates: Add concentrated sweetness and a soft, chewy texture between the fruit layers.
Malaga grapes: Contribute juiciness and mild sweetness to the fruit layers.
Oranges: Provide fresh citrus acidity and a light, juicy texture.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, cream, orange, lettuce, grape, rose):

Strawberryfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, cream, orange, lettuce, grape, rose. 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.