Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: 3 oranges; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 3 tablespoons olive oil

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 ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Thinly slice the oranges and remove the seeds.
In a bowl, combine the salt, cayenne, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Dress and serve

Drizzle the dressing over the sliced oranges and toss gently.
Serve as an accompaniment for broiled or roasted game or poultry.

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).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Provide the fresh, juicy, sweet-tart body of the salad.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the oranges and balances the oil.
Olive oil: Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries the seasoning across the fruit.
Cayenne pepper: Adds gentle heat that contrasts with the sweetness of the oranges.