Name: College Salad
Ingredients: 2 Neuchatel cheeses; 1 tablespoon melted butter; Bee Brand Paprika to taste; ½ of a canned pimento; Heart leaves of lettuce; Halves of English walnuts; Green Seal Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lettuce and walnut 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 ↓

College Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese mixture

Mash the cheeses with a fork until smooth.
Add paprika, salad dressing, and melted butter to the cheese mixture.
Chop the pimento very fine and mix it in.

Assemble the salads

Form a nest of lettuce leaves on each salad plate.
Drop a spoonful of the cheese mixture in the center of each nest.
Carefully place a half walnut on top of the cheese.

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 + walnuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + walnuttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together410 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together614 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Neuchatel cheeses: Provide the soft, creamy base that binds the salad together.
Melted butter: Adds richness and smooth texture to the cheese mixture.
Canned pimento: Adds mild sweetness and colour to the cheese mixture.
English walnuts: Add a crunchy texture and nutty flavour on top.