Name: Boiled Salad
Ingredients: 2 heads of celery; ½ pint of French beans; lettuce; endive

Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Boiled Salad

Ingredients

2 heads of celery
½ pint of French beans
lettuce
endive

Directions

Prepare

Boil the celery until tender, then cut it into pieces about 2 inches long.
Boil the French beans until tender.

Assemble

Combine the boiled celery and beans with lettuce and endive.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Beans + endivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Celery + endivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together160 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Provides the crisp-tender bulk and fresh vegetable flavour of the salad.
French beans: Add tender texture and mild, fresh vegetable flavour alongside the celery.
Lettuce: Adds crisp, cool leafy texture and freshness to the salad.
Endive: Contributes crunch and a mildly bitter note that balances the sweeter vegetables.