Name: Waldorf
Ingredients: 2 bright red or green apples (Jonathans or Northern Spies); ⅓ cup chopped celery; salad dressing (see below); lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Waldorf

Ingredients

2 bright red or green apples (Jonathans or Northern Spies)
⅓ cup chopped celery
salad dressing (see below)
lettuce leaves for serving

Directions

Cut the stem end off the apples and save it.
Scoop out the apple pulp.
Mix the apple pulp with the chopped celery and salad dressing.
Return the mixture to the apple shell and replace the stem top.
Serve the apple very cold on a lettuce leaf.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).