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Dessert

Banana Salad

A salad of sliced bananas rolled in cooked dressing and peanuts, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the bananas in halves lengthwise.

  2. Roll the bananas in Cooked Salad Dressing.

  3. Chop the peanuts and roll the bananas in the peanuts.

  4. Serve on lettuce leaves.

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. Peanut + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

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

  2. Banana + peanuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

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

  3. 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

Ripe bananas
Provide the sweet, soft fruit that forms the main body of the salad.
Chopped peanuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft banana.
Cooked salad dressing
Coats the bananas so the peanuts have something to cling to.

The step that matters

Roll the bananas in dressing soon after cutting. Cut banana flesh oxidises and darkens quickly. Coating it promptly limits contact with air and keeps the surface moist, so the peanuts stick evenly.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peanut, 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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