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
Cut the oranges into thick slices and remove the seeds.
If using sweet oranges, drizzle with lemon juice after slicing.
Arrange the orange slices in rows on a serving plate.
Pour salad dressing over the oranges.
Serve with game, and optionally add walnut meats.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,149 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,035 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Lemon + meattop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,817 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the walnut
The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, lemon, meat):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Chickpeafits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More orange salad recipes
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