Name: Pear Salad
Ingredients: Pears; Lettuce leaves; Chopped English walnuts; French dressing; Red pepper

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 ↓

Pear Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Wash, peel, and cut the pears into eighths lengthwise, then remove the seeds.
Arrange the pear slices on lettuce leaves.
Sprinkle chopped English walnuts over the pears.
Pour French dressing over the salad.
Garnish with ribbons of red pepper.

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).
Pear + walnuttop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together190 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pear + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,039 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).