Name: Poinsettia Salad
Ingredients: small, firm tomatoes; canned Hawaiian pineapples; lettuce heart leaves; curled parsley; French Dressing No. 2; Mayonnaise Dressing

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 ↓

Poinsettia Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and chill the tomatoes.
Cut the tomatoes into eighths.
Drain the canned pineapples and cut them into eighths.
Arrange the pineapple slices on a bed of lettuce leaves.
Cut the arrangement into five sections like a pie.
Place a slice of tomato, cut side down, into each section to form petals.
Fill the center with curled parsley.
Marinate with French Dressing No. 2.
Use a pastry bag to pipe Mayonnaise Dressing around the parsley.
Serve very cold.

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).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pineapple + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together271 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Tomato + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together306 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).