Skip to main content
Salad

Banana Salad

A salad of sliced bananas and lettuce topped with a mustard‑based dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Slice the bananas and arrange them on lettuce leaves.

  2. Add a few nuts to the salad.

Make the dressing

  1. Prepare the dressing: mix salt, mustard, butter, sugar, cream, cornstarch, egg yolks, and vinegar in a double boiler.

  2. Stir the dressing over heat until it begins to thicken.

  3. Strain the dressing.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, thin the dressing with ½ cup whipped cream if desired.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lettuce + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing as it heats, helping it reach a spoonable consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing over heat until it begins to thicken. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated. Gentle, constant stirring in a double boiler lets the yolks and cornstarch thicken the dressing smoothly without curdling.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, lettuce, mustard, butter, sugar, cream, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, lettuce, mustard, butter, sugar, cream, egg. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes