Name: Corn Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups fresh corn, cut from the ear; 2 cups cold boiled rice; tartar sauce; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Corn and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Salad

Ingredients

2 cups fresh corn, cut from the ear
2 cups cold boiled rice
tartar sauce
lettuce leaves

Directions

In a bowl, combine the fresh corn and cold boiled rice.
Season the mixture well to taste.
Add tartar sauce to moisten as desired.
Serve the salad in a nest of 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.

Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together520 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Corn + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together270 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh corn: Provides sweetness and a crisp, juicy bite to the salad.
Cold boiled rice: Adds bulk and a firm, separate texture that holds the salad together.
Tartar sauce: Moistens the salad and adds fat and acidity for richness and tang.