Name: Banana Salad
Ingredients: 6 bananas, sliced; 6 English walnuts, finely chopped; 1 head of lettuce, chopped; a little chopped parsley; French dressing

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the bananas and chop the walnuts, lettuce, and parsley.
In a bowl, combine the bananas, walnuts, lettuce, and parsley.
Serve with French dressing.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Banana + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together198 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Banana + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas: Provide the sweet, soft body of the salad and bulk.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a contrasting nutty flavor against the soft fruit.
Lettuce: Adds crisp, fresh texture and a cool, watery bite.
French dressing: Adds moisture, acidity and savory flavor that ties the salad together.