Name: Endive Salad
Ingredients: 1 clove garlic; a few sprigs of chives; 1 head of endive; 1 head of lettuce; 1 cup string beans or other beans

Why it works: Endive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Endive Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub the inside of a bowl with it.
Chop the chives finely and set aside.

Assemble and serve

In the bowl, combine the endive, lettuce, and string beans or other beans.
Sprinkle the chopped chives over the salad 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.

Endive + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Chive + endivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together61 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together261 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Garlic + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,149 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Endive: Provides crisp texture and a slightly bitter note that balances the salad.
Lettuce: Adds crisp, leafy body and moisture to the salad.
String beans: Add crunch and substance to the salad.
Chives: Add a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour.
Garlic: Rubbed inside the bowl, it lends a subtle aroma to the salad.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, chive, endive, lettuce, beans):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Cuminfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, chive, endive, lettuce, beans. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.