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Salad

Orange Salad

A chilled salad of orange segments dressed with lemon juice, oil, brandy, sugar, cayenne, tarragon, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Orange Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the peel and seeds from the oranges and divide the fruit into segments.

  2. Place the fruit in a salad bowl and add a few thin slices of lemon, free from skin and seeds.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the salad oil and brandy over the fruit.

  2. Season with sugar and cayenne, then add the chopped herbs.

  3. Mix thoroughly but carefully, and arrange neatly on a dish.

  4. Keep the dish on ice until ready to serve.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Lemon + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Orange + tarragontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 body, sweetness and juice for the salad.
Salad oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries the brandy and herb flavours.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth that complements the citrus and herbs.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the citrus and lemon juice with sweetness.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly but carefully, and arrange neatly on a dish.. Orange segments are delicate and tear easily, so gentle mixing keeps them intact while the oil and brandy coat the fruit evenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, brandy, sugar, tarragon, chervil):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Cherryfits less well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, brandy, sugar, tarragon, chervil. 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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