Name: Cheese and Nut Salad
Ingredients: 8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese; 1 cup English walnut kernels; Lettuce leaves; French dressing

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 ↓

Cheese and Nut Salad

Ingredients

8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese
1 cup English walnut kernels
Lettuce leaves
French dressing

Directions

Prepare the filling

Beat the cream cheese until soft and creamy.
Chop the walnut kernels using a meat chopper.
Mix the chopped walnuts with the cream cheese.

Assemble and serve

Form the mixture into balls and place two on nests of lettuce leaves.
Drizzle with French 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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cream cheese + walnuttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together439 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese: Provides a soft, creamy base that binds the walnuts and holds the balls together.
English walnut kernels: Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the smooth cheese.