Name: Nut and Celery Salad
Ingredients: equal parts pecans; equal parts almonds; equal parts English walnuts; equal parts celery; oil for marinating; French dressing; curly celery for garnish

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nut and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the pecans, almonds, English walnuts, and celery into small pieces.
Mix the chopped nuts and celery together in a bowl.

Marinate and serve

Marinate the mixture in oil for flavor.
Serve the salad with French dressing and garnish with curly celery.

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.

Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pecans + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together634 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pecans + almondtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together485 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).