Name: Peach Salad
Ingredients: ripe peaches; champagne; crisp lettuce

Why it works: Peach and lettuce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Peach Salad

Ingredients

ripe peaches
champagne
crisp lettuce

Directions

Remove the skins from the peaches and cut them into quarters.
Cover the peach quarters with thoroughly chilled champagne.
Serve immediately on a bed of crisp lettuce.

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.

Peach + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peach + champagnetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Champagne + lettucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together31 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).