Name: Scallop Salad
Ingredients: scallops; coarse sea salt; celery; mayonnaise dressing; lemon slices; celery leaves

Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scallop Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Put scallops into a basin of salted water and cook slowly for 1 hour.
Rinse scallops in cold water and boil slowly for 20 minutes.
Plunge scallops in cold water, drain, and cut into slices.
Mix scallops with an equal quantity of chopped celery.
Place in a salad bowl and cover with mayonnaise dressing.
Garnish with lemon slices and celery leaves.

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.

Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Scallop + lemontop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together79 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Scallop + celerytop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).