Name: Water Lily Salad
Ingredients: cold hard-boiled eggs; lettuce leaves; French dressing

Why it works: Egg and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,301 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Water Lily Salad

Ingredients

cold hard-boiled eggs
lettuce leaves
French dressing

Directions

Cut cold hard-boiled eggs into quarters lengthwise; if large, cut into eighths.
Place six pieces in a circle with pointed ends meeting in the center to represent the lily. Arrange on lettuce leaves and cover with French dressing.

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.

Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 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

Cold hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main protein and form the petal-shaped centerpiece of the salad.
Lettuce leaves: Form a crisp, fresh base that holds the eggs and dressing.
French dressing: Adds sweetness and acidity, moistening the eggs and leaves.

“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.