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Dessert

Heavenly Hash

A chilled fruit gelatin dessert made with oranges, bananas, pineapple, cherries, strawberries, pecans, sugar, white wine, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 733 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Heavenly Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the oranges and bananas.

  2. Chop the pineapple and strawberries if using fresh.

Make the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the oranges, bananas, pineapple, cherries, strawberries, and pecans.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in warm water for 1 hour until fully dissolved.

  3. Add the sugar and white wine to the fruit mixture, then stir in the dissolved gelatine.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and let it set in the refrigerator.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled with 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.

  1. Banana + pineappletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together733 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Banana + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable mold once chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the fruit and wine.
Oranges
Contribute bright acidity, juice and citrus aroma to the fruit mixture.
Bananas
Add natural sweetness and a soft, creamy texture to the set dish.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavour against the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Fully dissolve the gelatine before stirring it in. Undissolved gelatine leaves grains that do not hydrate, so the mixture sets unevenly and can feel gritty. Stir until clear before adding it to the fruit.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, banana, pineapple, sugar, white wine, 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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