Name: Fruit Salad
Ingredients: 1 can pineapple, cut into 1-inch pieces; 1 pound Malaga grapes, seeded and peeled; 1 can white cherries, stoned; ½ cup blanched and shredded almonds; boiled salad dressing; whipped cream

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

1 can pineapple, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pound Malaga grapes, seeded and peeled
1 can white cherries, stoned
½ cup blanched and shredded almonds
boiled salad dressing
whipped cream

Directions

Drain the fruit in a colander.
Mix the fruit lightly with boiled salad dressing and an equal quantity of whipped cream.

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).
Grape + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Pineapple + almondtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together428 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,574 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Whipped cream: Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the dressing.
Boiled salad dressing: Adds sweetness and tang, coating the fruit with a creamy moisture.