Name: Ham Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup diced boiled ham; 1 cup diced celery; 1 green pepper, chopped; cream salad dressing; lettuce leaves; soft cream cheese; cream; coarse sea salt; 1 chopped pimento

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 ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the diced ham, celery, and green pepper with cream salad dressing.
Rub the cream cheese smooth with cream and coarse sea salt.
Add the chopped pimento and form the mixture into balls the size of hickory nuts.

Serve

Serve the mixture in nests made from 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).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + cream cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,863 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled ham: Provides the meaty base and bulk of the salad.
Soft cream cheese: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture that binds the mixture.
Cream salad dressing: Adds moisture and tang that holds the diced ingredients together.
Celery: Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, celery, pepper, cream, cream cheese):

Mustardfits better
Carrotfits better
Spinachfits about as well
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, pepper, cream, cream cheese. 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.