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Salad

Prune Salad

A chilled salad of prunes, pecans, and cream served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,559 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Prune Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the prunes with coarse sea salt and paprika until tender.

  2. Cut the prunes into lengthwise strips.

  3. Chop the pecans into quarters.

  4. Beat the heavy cream and lemon juice until firm.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix three-quarters of the cream with the prunes and pecans.

  2. Arrange the mixture on lettuce leaves and top with the remaining cream and nuts.

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. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

  2. Pecans + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

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

  3. Pecans + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together399 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pecans + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + lettucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main body, sweetness and a soft, tender texture when cooked.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and, when beaten, a light, firm body that holds the salad together.
Pecans
Add crunch and fat-driven richness that contrasts with the soft prunes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the prunes and helps the cream thicken.

The step that matters

Beating the cream and lemon juice until firm. Cream must be beaten only until it holds its shape. Over-beating turns it grainy and can cause it to separate, while under-beating leaves the mixture loose and runny. Acid from the lemon juice helps the cream thicken, so add it before beating.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pecans, cream, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pecans, cream, 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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