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Salad

Melon Salad

A salad of sliced melon and onion, seasoned with pepper, salt, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Melon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the melon and place it in a deep dish.

  2. Insert thin slices of onion between the melon slices.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, cover with a plate, and let stand for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the onion slices.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress the salad with ⅔ cup oil, ⅓ cup vinegar, and ⅓ cup lemon juice.

  2. Dust with a pinch of red pepper and serve.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Melon + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Melon
Forms the main body of the salad and carries the dressing flavours.
Onion
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavour that contrasts with the sweet melon.
Oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the melon's sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the dressing.

The step that matters

Let the salad stand for 1 hour under a plate. Standing lets the salt and pepper draw flavour into the melon and softens the onion's sharpness. Covering keeps the surface from drying out while it rests.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, lemon. 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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