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Dessert

Fruit Salad

A chilled fruit salad of oranges, strawberries, cherries, preserved fruit, bananas, and cream served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,118 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the tops off the oranges and scoop out the pulp into a bowl.

  2. Add the strawberries, cherries, preserved fruit, and bananas to the bowl.

  3. Sweeten the mixture to taste and stir thoroughly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the orange skins with the fruit mixture.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff and place a large spoonful on top of each filled orange.

  3. Serve on delicate lettuce leaves as a first course.

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. Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Their pulp and skins hold the fruit mixture and serve as edible containers.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiffness, it forms a light topping that adds richness and a soft texture.
Bananas
Soft flesh adds body and mild sweetness to the fruit filling.
Strawberries
Contribute juicy texture, bright flavor and acidity to the filling.

The step that matters

Whip the cream until stiff. Cream must be whipped to stiff peaks so it holds its shape on top of the filled oranges. Under-whipped cream stays runny and slides off, while over-whipping turns it grainy and can make it separate into butter.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, banana, sugar, cream):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, banana, sugar, 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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