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Salad

Orange and Almond Salad

A salad of sliced sweet oranges and blanched almonds dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 and Almond Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all white skin from the sweet oranges and slice them thinly lengthwise.

  2. Slice the blanched almonds very thinly lengthwise.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the sliced oranges and almonds.

  2. Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil over the mixture for each pint of oranges and nuts.

  3. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, depending on the acidity of the oranges.

  4. Mix well and serve on a bed of tender, delicate heart lettuce leaves.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Almond + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet oranges
Provide the main fruit body, sweetness and juicy texture for the salad.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft orange slices.
Olive oil
Coats the oranges and almonds, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity to brighten the sweet oranges and balance the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice. Oranges vary in acidity and sweetness, so the lemon juice should be added in small amounts and tasted. Acid sharpens flavour and balances the richness of the oil, so too little leaves the salad flat and too much overwhelms the fruit.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

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