Name: Egg and Cheese Salad
Ingredients: ½ pound grated cheese; 3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped; 1 bottle stuffed olives, sliced; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Cheese and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,802 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Egg and Cheese Salad

Ingredients

½ pound grated cheese
3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 bottle stuffed olives, sliced
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

In a bowl, combine the grated cheese, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and sliced olives.
Mix the ingredients together thoroughly.
Garnish as desired.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the salad before serving.

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.

Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,802 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese: Adds richness and savoury flavour, and its fat helps give the salad body.
Hard boiled eggs: Provide protein-based bulk and a soft, creamy texture throughout the salad.
Stuffed olives: Add salty, briny flavour and a contrasting firm texture.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad and coating its ingredients.

The step that matters

Thoroughly mixing the ingredients. Even mixing spreads the dressing and seasoning evenly so each bite tastes balanced. Adding the mayonnaise just before serving keeps the salad from becoming watery or soggy.

“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.

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Egg and Cheese Salad