Name: Spring Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup diced celery; 2 cups diced tart apples; ¼ cup lemon juice; ½ cup French dressing; Lettuce leaves; ½ cup mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Dice the celery and apples, using half as much celery as apples.
Cover the diced mixture with lemon juice.

Chill and serve

Add French dressing and chill on ice.
When ready to serve, place the mixture on lettuce leaves and top with mayonnaise dressing.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples: Provide the crisp, tart base of the salad.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, crisp texture to the salad.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens flavour and slows browning of the cut apples.
French dressing: Adds sweetness and tang, seasoning the diced mixture as it chills.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds richness and fat, giving a creamy topping over the salad.