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Salad

Apple and Grapefruit Salad

A salad of sliced apples and grapefruit, dressed with French dressing and served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Grapefruit and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Apple and Grapefruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the pulp from the grapefruit using a spoon.

  2. Pare and slice the apples.

  3. Season the fruit with French dressing.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad on lettuce leaves.

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. Grapefruit + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together118 recipes

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

  2. Grapefruit + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

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

  3. Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grapefruit
Supplies juicy, tart citrus flavour and bright segments that contrast with the sweeter apple.
Apples
Provide crisp texture and mild sweetness that balances the tartness of the grapefruit.
French dressing
Adds acidity and fat that season the fruit and carry its flavour.

The step that matters

Dress the apples soon after slicing. Cut apple flesh oxidises and turns brown as enzymes react with air. Seasoning the fruit promptly, with acidic dressing, slows this browning and keeps the salad looking fresh.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grapefruit, 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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