Name: Belgian Salad
Ingredients: 6 to 8 heads of Belgian endive; 1 can of preserved Spanish pimentos; salt to taste; pepper to taste; oil to taste; vinegar to taste

Why it works: Endive and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 308 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Belgian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare and clean the Belgian endive.
Wash thoroughly, cut or break into convenient pieces, and drain.

Dress and serve

Mix the drained pimentos with the endive.
Season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar as desired.
Blend well and serve.

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.

Endive + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together308 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Endive + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together221 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Belgian endive: Provides the crisp, slightly bitter leaves that form the body of the salad.
Preserved spanish pimentos: Add sweetness, soft texture, and a mild red colour to the salad.