Name: Apple Salad
Ingredients: ½ to ¾ pound cold veal or lean fresh pork, diced; 2 raw tart apples, diced; watercress; salt; pepper; 2 teaspoons chopped pickle; 1 tablespoon oil; 1 tablespoon vinegar; salad dressing

Why it works: Watercress and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Line a salad bowl with watercress.
Dice the cold veal or pork and add it to the watercress.
Dice the tart apples and add them to the bowl.

Dress and serve

Season with salt and pepper.
Add the chopped pickle, oil, and vinegar.
Mix well and cover with salad 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.

Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Watercress + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,884 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,026 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal or lean fresh pork: Provides the main protein and substance of the salad.
Raw tart apples: Add crisp texture and a sharp, fresh acidity to the salad.
Pickle: Adds sour, salty bite that contrasts with the sweet apple and rich meat.
Oil: Carries flavor and adds richness to the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.