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Dessert

Pineapple Salad

A fruit salad of diced pineapple, cherries, strawberries, mayonnaise or wine dressing, whipped cream, lettuce leaves, and sweet peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Cut the top off the pineapple about one inch deep and scoop out the inside.

Make the fruit mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine diced pineapple, halved cherries, and halved strawberries.

  2. If using mayonnaise, mix it with half the amount of whipped cream.

  3. Drain and chill the fruit mixture, then fill the hollowed pineapple with it.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad surrounded by lettuce leaves and a few sweet peas.

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. Lettuce + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pineapple + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Pineapple + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

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

  5. Wine + peastop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Provides the sweet, juicy fruit base and the hollow shell that holds the salad.
Cherries
Add sweetness and a firm bite that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Strawberries
Add sweetness, aroma and soft juicy texture to the fruit mixture.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy, fatty texture to the dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the mayonnaise and adds a smooth, creamy texture to the dressing.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, wine, cream, lettuce. 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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