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Salad

Orange and Walnut Salad

A salad of sliced oranges, walnuts, lettuce, breadcrumbs, and cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Orange and Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the oranges and cut them into slices.

  2. Break the walnuts into small pieces over the oranges.

Assemble and serve

  1. Turn the mixture onto a bed of crisp, shredded lettuce.

  2. Cover with brown breadcrumbs and drizzle with thick cream dressing.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together373 recipes

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

  3. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Lettuce + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide sweetness and acidity that brighten the salad and balance the rich dressing.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a fat-rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Thick cream dressing
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fruit and nuts and binding the salad together.
Brown breadcrumbs
Add a toasty, crisp texture and absorb some of the dressing's moisture on top.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, lettuce, cream. 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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