Why it works: Fig and lettuce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 26 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the heart leaves from the lettuce, wash, and dry them to form a bed.
Peel the oranges, removing the skin, membrane, and seeds, and place the pulp on the lettuce.
Slice the figs into narrow pieces and arrange them on top of the oranges.
Dress and serve
Dissolve the salt in the lemon juice, add the oil, and mix thoroughly.
Pour the dressing over the salad, gently turning the fruit to coat, and serve immediately.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Fig + lettucetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together26 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together10,632 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Fig + orangetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together407 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lettuce + lemontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,558 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Orange + lettucetop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together372 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
- Cooked figs
- Provide soft, sweet fruit texture and bulk in the salad.
- Oranges
- Add bright sweetness and juiciness that balances the dressing.
- Lettuce
- Forms a crisp, cool base that holds the fruit.
- Oil
- Adds fat and carries flavour, giving the dressing a smooth body.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the sweetness of the fruit.
The step that matters
Dress the salad just before serving. Acid in the lemon juice draws moisture from lettuce and cut fruit, so the leaves wilt and the fruit weeps if the salad sits dressed for long. Tossing gently keeps the pieces intact.
Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, orange, lemon):
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against fig, orange, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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