Name: Ham and Nut Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups diced ham; 1 cup diced pecans; Mayonnaise salad dressing

Why it works: Ham and pecans work together. They rank in the top 42% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Ham and Nut Salad

Ingredients

2 cups diced ham
1 cup diced pecans
Mayonnaise salad dressing

Directions

Combine the diced ham and pecans in a bowl.
Marinate the mixture with mayonnaise 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.

Ham + pecanstop 42% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Diced ham: Provides savory meaty bulk and the main substance of the salad.
Diced pecans: Adds crunch and a toasty, nutty aroma that contrasts with the soft ham.
Mayonnaise salad dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the ham and pecans 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.