Name: French Artichoke Salad
Ingredients: artichokes; onion juice; lettuce leaves; Mayonnaise

Why it works: Artichoke and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 101 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

French Artichoke Salad

Ingredients

artichokes
onion juice
lettuce leaves
Mayonnaise

Directions

Boil the artichokes until tender, then let them cool completely.
At serving time, place a drop of onion juice in the center of each artichoke.
Arrange the artichokes neatly on lettuce leaves.
Serve with a bowl of Mayonnaise.

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.

Artichoke + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together101 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Artichoke + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).