Name: Banana and Peanut Salad
Ingredients: 2 ripe bananas; ½ cup finely ground peanuts; Lettuce leaves; Rich mayonnaise

Why it works: Peanut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Banana and Peanut Salad

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
½ cup finely ground peanuts
Lettuce leaves
Rich mayonnaise

Directions

Slice the bananas lengthwise.
Cover the banana slices with finely ground peanuts.
Serve on lettuce leaves with rich mayonnaise.

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.

Peanut + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together170 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Banana + peanuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together308 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe bananas: Provide the main body and natural sweetness of the salad.
Finely ground peanuts: Add crunch and a nutty, roasted flavor against the soft banana.
Rich mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, giving moisture and a smooth richness to the salad.