Name: Lettuce Salad
Ingredients: delicate leaves of lettuce; currant jelly; cream cheese; French dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and cream cheese work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 213 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

delicate leaves of lettuce
currant jelly
cream cheese
French dressing

Directions

Arrange delicate leaves of lettuce on individual plates.
Place a small mold of currant jelly in the center of each plate.
Surround the jelly with small balls of cream cheese.
Pour French dressing over the salad.

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.

Lettuce + cream cheesetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Currant + cream cheesetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Lettuce + curranttop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together28 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).