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Dessert

Fruit Salad

Fruit salad made with pineapple, white cherries, nut meats, eggs, citrus juices, rinds, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, combine beaten eggs, orange juice, lemon juice, and grated rinds.

  2. Cook until the mixture thickens to the consistency of lemon pie.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, fold in whipped cream.

  2. Serve with pineapple, white cherries, and nut meats.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the citrus mixture as they cook, giving it a custard-like body.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy texture when folded into the thickened mixture.
Orange and lemon juice
Provide acidity and bright flavour that balances the richness of the eggs and cream.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set gradually as they are heated, and overheating can curdle them. Cooking gently in a double boiler and stopping at the thickened stage keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, orange, lemon, 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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