Name: Blanched Green Peppers and Cheese Salad
Ingredients: Green peppers; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 dash paprika; 6 stuffed olives, chopped fine; Mayonnaise; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Blanched Green Peppers and Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Blanch the green peppers, cut off the large end, and remove the centers.
Put the peppers on ice.
In a bowl, mix the cheese with salt, paprika, and chopped olives.
While soft, press the mixture into the hollowed peppers.
Chill the stuffed peppers and then cut them into slices.
Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise or use as a garnish.

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.

Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).