Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Fruit Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the oranges and bananas very thin.
Sprinkle with sugar, sherry, and maraschino.
Chill
Place in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
You can omit the wine and maraschino and use lemon juice instead.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Orange + bananatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,118 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Banana + sherrytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together117 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Orange + sherrytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together823 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Oranges
- Provide the main fruit and juice that mixes with the sugar.
- Bananas
- Add soft texture and mild sweetness as they sit.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice that forms a syrup.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, banana, sugar, sherry):
- Vanillafits better
- Pineapplefits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against orange, banana, sugar, sherry. 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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