Why it works: Raisin and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,768 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Orange Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Peel 5 of the oranges and slice them without breaking the pulp; arrange on a glass dish.
Stone the raisins, then mix them with the sugar and brandy.
Combine the raisins with the sliced oranges.
Squeeze the juice of the remaining orange over the salad.
Optionally, add a small amount of pounded spice for flavor.
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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Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,768 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,684 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,706 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oranges
- Provide the fresh fruit base and juice that moistens and flavors the salad.
- Muscat raisins
- Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture against the juicy orange slices.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves easily into the brandy and raisins, adding sweetness throughout the salad.
- Brandy
- Adds aromatic depth and helps carry the sugar evenly through the raisins.
The step that matters
Slice the oranges without breaking the pulp. Keeping the pulp intact holds the juice inside the fruit, so the salad stays moist and the slices hold their shape when arranged.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, brandy. 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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