Name: Celery and Walnut Salad
Ingredients: 3 cups celery, cut into small pieces; 1 cup English walnut meat, broken in half; ½ cup mayonnaise; Lettuce for garnish

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Celery and Walnut Salad

Ingredients

3 cups celery, cut into small pieces
1 cup English walnut meat, broken in half
½ cup mayonnaise
Lettuce for garnish

Directions

In a bowl, combine the celery and walnut meat.
Add enough mayonnaise to moisten the mixture well.
Garnish with lettuce before serving.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Provides crisp texture and fresh, mild flavour that contrasts the rich dressing.
English walnut meat: Adds crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour to the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture that coats the celery and walnuts and binds them together.