Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: 12 oranges; ½ teaspoon powdered cloves; sugar to taste; ½ lemon (juiced); ⅓ cup sherry; 1 teaspoon orange-flower water

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

Slice the oranges.
Sprinkle with powdered cloves and sugar.

Dress and serve

In a bowl, mix the lemon juice, sherry, and orange-flower water.
Pour the mixture over the salad and serve.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Orange + sherrytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together823 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,237 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Make up the body of the salad and release juice that mixes with the dressing.
Sherry: Adds a fortified wine flavour and aroma that complements the citrus.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavours.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and draws out juice from the oranges.
Powdered cloves: Adds warm, spicy aroma to the oranges.
Orange-flower water: Adds a delicate floral aroma that reinforces the orange flavour.