Name: Orange Salad
Ingredients: 4 peeled oranges; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 3 tablespoons oil; Lettuce leaves; 1 cup chopped nuts

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

Slice the peeled oranges.
Mix the orange slices with lemon juice and oil.
Arrange the mixture in a heap on lettuce leaves.
In the center, place the chopped nuts mixed with lemon juice.

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 + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Orange + nutstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges: Provide the main sweet, juicy body and bright citrus flavor of the salad.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweet orange and helps keep the fruit fresh-tasting.
Oil: Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavor across the orange slices.
Chopped nuts: Add crunch and a contrasting texture against the soft orange slices.