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Winter Citrus Salad

"A delicious blend of different citrus favors."

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Why it works: Grapefruit and tangerine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 8 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep15 min

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Peel the oranges, grapefruit and tangerines, then cut away all the white pith. Section the oranges and tangerines, and cut the grapefruit sections away from the membrane, catching any juice in a bowl.

  2. Place the walnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat and toast them, stirring often, for 3 to 4 minutes until fragrant. Let them cool.

  3. In a small bowl, whisk the lime juice and honey together until smooth.

  4. Add all the citrus sections and any reserved juice to a large serving bowl. Pour the lime and honey mixture over the fruit and gently toss to coat.

  5. Sprinkle the toasted walnuts over the salad just before serving so they stay crisp. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Grapefruit + tangerinetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Orange + grapefruittop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Grapefruit + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Orange + limetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Orange + tangerinetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, grapefruit, tangerine, lime, honey):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pistachioabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, grapefruit, tangerine, lime, honey. 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).