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Salad

Orange and Walnut Salad

A salad of sliced oranges, walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Orange and Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the peeled oranges lengthwise.

  2. Dress the orange slices with olive oil and lemon juice.

  3. Arrange the slices in a mound on a layer of lettuce leaves.

  4. Dress the sliced nut meats with olive oil, salt, and lemon juice.

  5. Place the dressed nut meats in the center of the mound.

  6. Mix together before serving.

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

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  4. Orange + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,456 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main fresh, juicy body and sweetness of the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour across the oranges and nuts.
Nut meats
Add crunch and richness that contrast with the soft orange slices.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the oranges and balances their sweetness.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, olive, lemon, meat):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, olive, lemon, meat. 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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