Name: Apple Salad
Ingredients: 7 or 8 large apples, peeled and cored; 1 small bunch of celery; salad dressing

Why it works: Apple and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

7 or 8 large apples, peeled and cored
1 small bunch of celery
salad dressing

Directions

Chop the apples into coarse pieces.
Cut the celery into small pieces.
Mix the chopped apples and celery together.
Thoroughly mix with the salad 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.

Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the main bulk, crisp texture and fresh sweetness of the salad.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savory note that balances the sweet apples.
Salad dressing: Coats the pieces with moisture and flavor, binding the salad together.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.