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Dessert

Melon Salad

A fruit salad of melon, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Melon and grape work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 126 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Melon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the melon and cut it into small blocks.

  2. In a bowl, mix the oil with the coarse sea salt.

  3. Toss the melon gently in the oil mixture.

Dress and serve

  1. Add more oil as needed based on the amount of fruit.

  2. Add vinegar in a ratio of one-third the amount of oil.

  3. Season with pepper to taste.

  4. Arrange halved and seeded grapes, strawberries, and raspberries as desired.

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. Melon + grapetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Pepper + grapetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + grapetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Melon + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together416 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Melon
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its sweet, juicy base.
Oil
Coats the melon and carries flavour, adding richness and moisture to the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the fruit and balances the oil.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, grape):

  1. Mangofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, grape. 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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