Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Good Dressing for Fruit Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the almonds
Soak the blanched and bitter almonds in cold water for 1-2 hours.
Pound the soaked almonds until fine.
Make the dressing
Add salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice to the ground almonds.
Thin the mixture with sherry wine until it reaches a cream-like consistency.
If desired, stir in cold fresh cream just before serving.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together517 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Blanched sweet almonds
- Form the body of the dressing as a fine, ground paste.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a characteristic almond aroma and depth of flavour.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the almonds.
- Sherry wine
- Thins the almond paste to a smooth, pourable, cream-like texture.
- Cold fresh cream
- Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture when stirred in.
The step that matters
Pound the soaked almonds until fine. If the almonds are left coarse, the dressing will be gritty rather than smooth. Soaking softens the skins and flesh so they grind into a fine paste more easily, and the paste then thins evenly when the sherry is added.
Flavor stand-ins for the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, sherry, wine, cream):
- Chestnutabout as good a flavor fit
- Almondthe original
- Beansabout as good a flavor fit
- Walnutabout as good a flavor fit
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, sherry, wine, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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