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Salad

Melon Salad

A simple salad of sliced melon seasoned with salt, cayenne, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Melon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Serve a slice of melon at the beginning of dinner.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Drizzle with oil and vinegar if desired.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Melon + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together416 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Melon + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Melon
Provides the sweet, juicy base that the salt and spice season.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the melon and heightens its perceived sweetness.
Oil
Adds fat and a silkier mouthfeel to the melon.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet flavour of the melon.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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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