Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: sour oranges (or sweet oranges); 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 3 tablespoons oil; coarse sea salt to taste; cayenne pepper to taste; paprika to taste

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 the oranges

If using sweet oranges, strain lemon juice over them after slicing.
Cut the oranges into thick slices.
Remove the seeds.

Dress and serve

Arrange the slices in rows on a serving plate.
Drizzle the dressing made from lemon juice, oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and paprika over the oranges.
Serve with game.

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).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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: Form the salad's main body and provide its sharp, sweet citrus flavour.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the oranges and balances the richness of the oil.
Oil: Carries the seasonings and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.