Name: Egg Salad
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs, cut into small pieces; 1 small bunch of celery, finely chopped; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Egg Salad

Ingredients

6 hard boiled eggs, cut into small pieces
1 small bunch of celery, finely chopped
mayonnaise dressing
lettuce leaves

Directions

Prepare

Cut the hard boiled eggs into small pieces.
Finely chop the celery and add it to the eggs.

Dress and serve

Cover the mixture with mayonnaise dressing.
Serve the salad 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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + celerytop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,334 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

Eggs: Provide the main body and creamy, tender texture of the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft eggs.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture that binds the eggs and celery together.