Name: Pecan Salad
Ingredients: Celery; Pecan meats; Mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Celery and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,880 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pecan Salad

Ingredients

Celery
Pecan meats
Mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Cut the celery into small pieces suitable for salad.
Mix the celery with the pecan meats.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the mixture.

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 + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,880 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
Pecan meats: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the celery.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad and giving it a creamy coating.

“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.