Name: Nut Salad
Ingredients: equal parts celery; equal parts nuts; French dressing

Why it works: Celery and nuts work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

equal parts celery
equal parts nuts
French dressing

Directions

Chop the celery and nuts into bite-sized pieces.
Combine the chopped celery and nuts in a bowl.
Drizzle with French dressing and toss to coat.
Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + nutstop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together169 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

Celery: Provides crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor as the salad's main bulk.
Nuts: Add crunch and richness that contrast with the crisp celery.
French dressing: Adds moisture and tangy, sweet acidity that coats the celery and nuts.

“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.