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Orange Salad

A chilled salad of sliced oranges sweetened with powdered sugar and soaked in sherry, brandy, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and rum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Peel the oranges and remove the white skin.

  2. Cut the oranges into slices about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Arrange the slices in a compote dish.

Macerate and serve

  1. Sprinkle the powdered sugar over the oranges.

  2. Pour the sherry, brandy, and rum (or whisky) over the oranges.

  3. For a different flavor, use curaçao or maraschino instead.

  4. Prepare the salad a day in advance for best results.

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. Sherry + rumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  5. Orange + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main fresh body, juice and bright citrus flavor of the salad.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the orange juice and sweetens the salad quickly.
Sherry
Adds nutty, wine-like depth and moistens the orange slices.
Brandy
Adds warm aroma and flavor that complements the citrus.
Rum or whisky
Adds caramel-like depth and a warming finish to the soaking liquor.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the powdered sugar over the oranges. Powdered sugar dissolves faster than granulated sugar, so it blends into the juice and liquor evenly and sweetens the salad without grittiness.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, brandy, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, brandy, rum. 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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