Name: Apple and Celery Salad
Ingredients: equal parts firm spicy apple, diced; equal parts white celery, chopped; mayonnaise

Why it works: Apple and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Apple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

equal parts firm spicy apple, diced
equal parts white celery, chopped
mayonnaise

Directions

Prepare

Dice the firm spicy apple into small pieces.
Chop the white celery into small pieces.

Combine and dress

Combine the diced apple and chopped celery in a bowl.
Add mayonnaise to the mixture and stir until well coated.

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.

Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm spicy apple: Adds crisp texture and a sharp, fresh flavour that contrasts the creamy dressing.
White celery: Adds crunch and a mild, clean vegetal flavour.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the pieces together in a moist dressing.

“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.