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Banana Salad

A salad of sliced bananas coated with mayonnaise and peanuts, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut bananas into 3 crosswise pieces.

  2. Roll banana pieces in mayonnaise dressing.

  3. Roll in finely chopped peanuts.

Serve

  1. Place 2 pieces on a lettuce leaf.

  2. Top with a spoonful of mayonnaise dressing.

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. Peanut + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Banana + peanuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 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

Bananas
Provide the sweet, soft fruit that forms the body of the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds creamy moisture and richness that clings to the banana pieces.
Finely chopped peanuts
Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft banana.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peanut, 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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