Name: Beet Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint chopped beets; ½ pint chopped celery; ⅓ pint chopped pecans or walnut meats; salt to taste; pepper to taste; highly seasoned salad dressing

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beet Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the chopped beets, celery, and pecans or walnuts.
Add the highly seasoned salad dressing and mix well.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + pecanstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together219 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pecans + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together396 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

Beets: Provide the main body, earthy sweetness and colour of the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft beets.
Pecans or walnuts: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour.
Highly seasoned salad dressing: Adds moisture and savoury, tangy seasoning that coats the salad.