Name: Peach Salad
Ingredients: firm ripe peaches; ice water; lettuce leaves; mayonnaise; chopped nuts

Why it works: Lettuce and nuts work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 174 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Peach Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Scald and peel the peaches.
Place the peaches in ice water to chill.
Carefully remove the stone from each peach using a coffee spoon.
Place each peach on a lettuce leaf.
Fill each peach with mayonnaise and sprinkle with chopped nuts.
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.

Lettuce + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Peach + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peach + nutstop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).