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Salad

Fruit Salad

A chilled salad of oranges, walnuts, grapes, lettuce, and a creamy egg-based dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the oranges into bits.

  2. Blanch the walnuts and set aside to dry.

  3. Skin and seed the Melaga grapes.

  4. Chill the lettuce.

Make the dressing

  1. Prepare the dressing.

  2. In a double boiler, combine eggs, milk, butter, vinegar, mustard, cayenne, flour, sugar, and salt.

  3. Cook until thickened, then add whipped cream.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad with the chilled lettuce.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Walnut + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together373 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

Eggs
Set and thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it holds together rather than running.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts its richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, making the dressing creamy.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened. Egg-based dressings thicken as the egg proteins set, but if the heat is too high the eggs can scramble and curdle. Gentle heat in a double boiler keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, grape, lettuce, egg, milk, butter, vinegar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, grape, lettuce, egg, milk, butter, vinegar. 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.

More fruit salad recipes

Dressing 41Ambrosia 24Pineapple 21Grape 15Frozen 10Mixed 8 See all 267 →

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