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Dessert

Fruit Salad

A chilled fruit salad with pineapple, grapes, marshmallows, pecans, egg yolk dressing, lemon, mustard, salt, soda, milk, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Combine pineapple and grapes in muslin bags.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, lemon juice, mustard, salt, and soda until thick.

  2. Stir in the milk and cool in the refrigerator.

  3. Once cool, fold in the whipped cream.

Serve

  1. Let the salad stand on ice for a few minutes 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. Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  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

Egg yolks
Egg yolks thicken the dressing as they cook and add richness.
Lemon juice
Lemon juice adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances sweetness.
Milk
Milk thins the thickened base and adds a smooth, creamy body.
Whipped cream
Whipped cream adds air and fat, giving the dressing a light, fluffy texture.
Marshmallows
Marshmallows add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream only once the base is cool. Whipped cream is held up by trapped air and fat. If the base is still warm, it can soften and deflate the cream, leaving the dressing dense instead of light.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, grape, meat, egg, lemon, 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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