Name: Holland House Salad
Ingredients: three grape-fruits pulled into large sections; one small bottle of marrons; two cakes of neufchatel cheese mixed

Why it works: Grape and cheese work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 266 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Holland House Salad

Ingredients

three grape-fruits pulled into large sections
one small bottle of marrons
two cakes of neufchatel cheese mixed

Directions

Pull three grape-fruits into large sections and arrange on leaves of lettuce.
Mix one small bottle of marrons and two cakes of Neufchatel cheese with cream and highly seasoned.
Serve with mayonnaise.

By Mary Elizabeth Lyles Wilson (1860–1924). 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. See the original page.

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.

Grape + cheesetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together266 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Grapefruit (in the method): Provides juicy, tart sections that add acidity and freshness to the salad.
Marrons: Adds a soft, sweet, starchy body to the cheese mixture.
Neufchatel cheese: Gives the filling a creamy, rich texture and mild tang.

“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.