Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: 3 slices of orange; 3 English walnuts; 1 lettuce leaf; salad dressing (sweetened)

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

3 slices of orange
3 English walnuts
1 lettuce leaf
salad dressing (sweetened)

Directions

Place a slice of orange on each walnut.
Arrange on a lettuce leaf.
Drizzle with a little sweetened salad dressing.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Orange slices: Provide bright citrus flavour and juiciness that contrasts with the nutty walnuts.
English walnuts: Add a crisp, slightly bitter nutty bite that balances the sweetness of the orange.
Lettuce leaf: Acts as a fresh, crisp base that holds the orange and walnut pieces.
Sweetened salad dressing: Adds sweetness and moisture that coats the orange and lettuce.