Name: Banana, Celery and Nut Salad
Ingredients: ½ cup nut meats, cut in small pieces; 1 cup celery, cut in small pieces; 6 bananas, cut in quarters lengthwise and sliced into ½ inch slices

Why it works: Meat and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,880 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Banana, Celery and Nut Salad

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

½ cup nut meats, cut in small pieces
1 cup celery, cut in small pieces
6 bananas, cut in quarters lengthwise and sliced into ½ inch slices

Directions

Mix the salad dressing with each ingredient separately.
Combine the mixtures.
Serve in the banana peel or on lettuce leaves.

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.

Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,880 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Celery + bananatop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together128 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Meat + bananatop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together90 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).