Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: 2 oranges; ½ cup oil; 1 teaspoon vinegar; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Orange and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,402 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

Cut the oranges into thin slices and remove the rinds.
Mix the vinegar, pepper, salt, and oil together.
Pour the dressing over the sliced oranges.

Serve

Serve with wild duck.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Orange + vinegartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Supply the juicy fruit body and natural sweetness of the salad.
Oil: Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the fruit's sweetness.