Name: Marshmallow Salad
Ingredients: 1 can (10 oz) marshmallows; ½ cup English walnut meats; ½ pound white grapes, halved and seeded; 1 small pineapple, shredded (canned may be used); 1 orange, shredded; head lettuce; coarse sea salt; mayonnaise dressing; whipped cream

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Marshmallow Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut each marshmallow into five or six pieces.
In a bowl, combine walnuts, grapes, pineapple, and orange.

Assemble and serve

On a platter, arrange lettuce leaves and sprinkle with salt.
Top with the marshmallow mixture.
Crown with mayonnaise dressing mixed with a little whipped cream.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Grape + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together709 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Walnut + grapetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,427 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Marshmallows: Provide soft, chewy sweetness that contrasts with the crisp fruit and nuts.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess, coating the salad with a rich, tangy finish.
Whipped cream: Lightens the dressing and adds a smooth, airy texture.
White grapes: Add juiciness and mild sweetness to the salad.
English walnut meats: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor against the soft marshmallows.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, meat, grape, pineapple, lettuce, cream):

Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Avocadofits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, meat, grape, pineapple, lettuce, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.