Name: Nut and Celery Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups celery, finely shredded; 1½ cups hickory nut meats, broken fine; French dressing; watercress for garnish

Why it works: Celery and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nut and Celery Salad

Ingredients

2 cups celery, finely shredded
1½ cups hickory nut meats, broken fine
French dressing
watercress for garnish

Directions

Prepare

Cut celery into fine shreds and soak in water.
Drain and dry the celery.

Assemble and serve

Add hickory nut meats to the celery.
Serve with French dressing and garnish with watercress.

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.

Celery + watercresstop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,880 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + watercresstop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together70 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Provides crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor as the salad's base.
Hickory nut meats: Add crunch and rich, buttery flavor that contrasts with the celery.