Name: Oeange Salad
Ingredients: 5 oranges; 2 tablespoons powdered sugar; 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint leaves; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 2 tablespoons Sherry wine; 1-inch cube of currant jelly; small sprig of fresh mint

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Oeange Salad

serves six

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the pulp from the oranges and chill thoroughly.
Place the pulp in six champagne glasses.

Dress and serve

In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar, chopped mint leaves, lemon juice, and Sherry wine.
Pour the dressing over the orange pulp in each glass.
Add a cube of currant jelly to each glass.
Garnish with a small sprig of fresh mint.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together549 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Provide the main fruit pulp, supplying juice, sweetness and bulk for the salad.
Powdered sugar: Dissolves easily into the citrus juices, sweetening the dressing evenly.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the oranges and sugar.
Sherry wine: Adds a nutty, fortified-wine aroma and some acidity to the dressing.
Currant jelly: Adds concentrated sweetness and fruity flavour that melts slightly into the juices.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, mint, lemon, sherry, wine):

Limefits better
Raspberryfits better
Pineapplefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, mint, lemon, sherry, wine. 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.