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Banana Salad

A salad of sliced bananas cooked in butter, chilled, served on lettuce with peanut meal and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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. Split the bananas and cut them across.

  2. Melt the butter in a skillet over low heat.

  3. Add the bananas and cook until clear around the edges, turning carefully.

  4. Remove the bananas to a flat dish.

  5. Pour juice over them.

  6. Chill on ice until set.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves, sprinkled with peanut meal and topped with mayonnaise.

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).

  4. Banana + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Butter + peanuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main body of the salad, with soft flesh that softens further when gently cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for gentle frying, helping the bananas brown lightly without sticking.
Peanut meal
Adds a nutty flavour and crunchy texture to the finished salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and creaminess, balancing the sweetness of the bananas.

The step that matters

Cooking the bananas over low heat. Cooking over low heat softens the bananas and turns them clear at the edges without scorching the butter or breaking the fruit apart. Turning them carefully keeps the slices intact.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, butter, peanut. 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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