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Salad

Salad a LA Basso

A salad of orange pulp, thinly sliced Bermuda onion, crisp lettuce, and French dressing with added sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,562 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the pulp of two oranges in the center of a cluster of crisp lettuce leaves.

  2. Add one medium-sized Bermuda onion, sliced very thin.

  3. Pour over this a French dressing that has sugar added.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,562 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together372 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together19,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Orange + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,921 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Lettuce + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Orange and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 19,210 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Adds juicy sweetness and bright acidity that balance the sharp onion.
Bermuda onion
Supplies a sharp, pungent bite that contrasts with the sweet oranges.
Crisp lettuce leaves
Forms the crisp base that holds the other ingredients and gives texture.
French dressing
Adds moisture, acidity and sweetness that coat the leaves and fruit.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lettuce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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