Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint of shrimps; 1 head of lettuce; 1 tablespoon of parsley; Mayonnaise (prepared as directed)

Why it works: Lettuce and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

1 pint of shrimps
1 head of lettuce
1 tablespoon of parsley
Mayonnaise (prepared as directed)

Directions

Prepare

Boil the shrimps in salted water for 5 minutes.
Remove the heads and shells from the shrimps.
Wash and dry the lettuce thoroughly.
Chop the parsley.

Assemble

Arrange the shrimps and lettuce in a salad dish.
Mix the chopped parsley with the prepared mayonnaise.
Dress the salad with the mayonnaise mixture.

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.

Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together430 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Shrimp + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,723 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).