Name: Pineapple Salad
Ingredients: 1 can sliced pineapple; ½ pound English walnuts; 2 cups diced celery; cream salad dressing; lettuce leaves

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 ↓

Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Drain the pineapple.
Halve the walnuts.
Wash and cut the celery into small pieces.

Assemble and serve

Just before serving, mix all ingredients together and add the dressing.
Serve cold 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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together271 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pineapple + walnuttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 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

Pineapple: Adds sweetness and juiciness that balances the rich dressing.
English walnuts: Add a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild bite.
Cream salad dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad together.