Name: California Salad
Ingredients: stewed prunes; grated cheese; fresh radishes; lettuce leaves; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Radish and lettuce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

California Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the stones from the stewed prunes and stuff them with grated cheese.
Slice fresh radishes as thin as wafers.
Fill cups of lettuce leaves with the stuffed prunes and radishes on platters.
Surround the edge with small half radishes.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the salad and chill on ice 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.

Radish + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together614 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + radishtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).