Name: Chrysanthemum Salad
Ingredients: Chrysanthemum flowers; vinaigrette or mayonnaise sauce; shredded truffles; celery; Indian pickles; salt; clove; chutney or curry sauce

Why it works: Celery and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,668 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Chrysanthemum Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Pick, wash, and drain the chrysanthemum flowers.
Mix the flowers with vinaigrette or mayonnaise sauce in a basin.
Arrange the mixture in a glass dish.
Garnish with shredded truffles, celery, and Indian pickles.
For a hot dish, cook the flowers in slightly salted water with a clove, then serve with chutney or curry sauce.

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.

Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Sauce + truffletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,490 recipes
Truffle + clovetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together514 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).
Sauce + celerytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,360 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Truffle + celerytop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together263 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).