Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: 1 can of shrimp; 1 head of lettuce; 2 tablespoons of chopped capers; French dressing; mayonnaise

Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the shrimp in fresh water for 30 minutes, then drain and pat dry with a cloth.
Clean and crisp the inside leaves of the lettuce and arrange them in a salad bowl.

Assemble

Place the shrimp in the center of the lettuce, dress with mayonnaise, and sprinkle with capers.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shrimp + caperstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Shrimp + lettucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together430 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp: Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad's filling.
Lettuce: Forms the crisp base that holds the shrimp and dressing.
Mayonnaise: Adds richness and moisture, coating the shrimp and binding the flavors together.
Capers: Add a sharp, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.