Name: Pineapple and Celery Salad
Ingredients: 1 small pineapple; 1 cup celery, finely chopped; ½ cup mayonnaise; ½ cup whipped cream; ¼ teaspoon salt; pecans for garnish

Why it works: Pineapple and pecans work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 294 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Pineapple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and remove the eyes from the pineapple, then cut it into slices almost an inch thick and dice.
Wash and finely chop an equal amount of celery.

Make and serve the salad

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise and whipped cream.
Stir a little more than half of the mayonnaise mixture with the pineapple and celery, then season with salt.
Garnish with pecans before serving.

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.

Pineapple + pecanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together294 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pineapple + celerytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together230 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,863 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Celery + pecanstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together219 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together706 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple: Provides the main fruit body and sweet, tangy flavor in the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft fruit.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and richness that binds the pineapple and celery together.
Whipped cream: Lightens the dressing and adds a smooth, airy creaminess.