Name: Apple and Celery Salad
Ingredients: equal parts finely cut apples; equal parts finely cut celery; mayonnaise or boiled dressing; crisp lettuce

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Apple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

equal parts finely cut apples
equal parts finely cut celery
mayonnaise or boiled dressing
crisp lettuce

Directions

Combine finely cut apples and celery in a bowl. Mix with mayonnaise or boiled dressing.
Serve 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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Add crisp texture and natural sweetness that balances the celery.
Celery: Contributes crunch and a fresh, slightly savory bite.
Mayonnaise or boiled dressing: Adds fat and moisture that bind the chopped vegetables and fruit together.