Name: Nut and Celery Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped English walnuts or pecans; 1 cup finely chopped celery; mayonnaise dressing; crisp lettuce

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 ↓

Nut and Celery Salad

Ingredients

1 cup chopped English walnuts or pecans
1 cup finely chopped celery
mayonnaise dressing
crisp lettuce

Directions

Combine the chopped walnuts or pecans and finely chopped celery in a bowl.
Mix in enough mayonnaise dressing to coat the ingredients.
Serve the mixture on a bed of crisp lettuce.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts or pecans: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft dressing.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild bite to the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing: Coats the nuts and celery, adding moisture and richness that binds the salad together.