Name: Banana Salad
Ingredients: 2 bananas; ½ cup mayonnaise; ¼ cup chopped nuts; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Nuts and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 174 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

2 bananas
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup chopped nuts
Lettuce leaves

Directions

Cut the bananas lengthwise.
Roll the bananas in mayonnaise.
Sprinkle with chopped nuts.
Serve on lettuce 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.

Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Banana + nutstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas: Provide the sweet, soft fruit that forms the body of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, coating the bananas and keeping them moist.
Chopped nuts: Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft banana and mayonnaise.