Name: Oeange and Walnut Salad
Ingredients: 4 oranges, peeled; 3-4 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 cup sliced nut meats; 1 tablespoon olive oil (for nuts); a dash of salt; ½ teaspoon lemon juice (for nuts); lettuce leaves

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 and Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the oranges lengthwise.
Dress the orange slices with olive oil and lemon juice.
In a bowl, dress the sliced nut meats with olive oil, salt, and lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

Arrange the slices in a mound on a layer of lettuce leaves.
Place the dressed nuts in the center of the mound.
Mix together before serving.

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).
Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Olive + lemontop 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).
Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 body and bright, sweet-tart juice that dresses the salad.
Olive oil: Carries flavour and adds a smooth, fatty coating to the orange slices and nuts.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the oranges and balances the oil.
Nut meats: Add crunch and a rich, toasty-nutty flavour against the soft, juicy fruit.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, olive, lemon, meat, lettuce):

Chickpeafits better
Almondfits better
Walnutfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, olive, lemon, meat, lettuce. 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.