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Salad

Banana Salad

A salad of peeled bananas rolled in egg and ground peanuts, served on lettuce with dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Prepare

  1. Peel and trim the ends off the bananas.

  2. Beat the egg until light.

Coat and serve

  1. Roll each banana in the egg, then in the ground peanuts.

  2. Place the bananas on lettuce leaves and drizzle with salad dressing.

  3. Serve immediately.

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).

  4. Banana + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Egg + peanuttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe bananas
Provide the main body and natural sweetness of the salad.
Egg
Binds the ground peanuts to the banana surface so the coating sticks.
Ground peanuts
Add a crunchy, toasted-nut texture to the outside of the bananas.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture and tangy flavour that contrasts with the sweet banana.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Cut or peeled bananas oxidise and soften quickly, and the egg coating and dressing lose their texture as they sit, so the salad is best assembled and eaten right away.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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