Name: Okange and Walnut Salad
Ingredients: 1 lb picked walnuts; 1 head lettuce; 2 oranges; mayonnaise

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Okange and Walnut Salad

Ingredients

1 lb picked walnuts
1 head lettuce
2 oranges
mayonnaise

Directions

Prepare

Chop the walnuts.
Peel the oranges and slice them lengthwise.

Assemble and serve

Mix the chopped walnuts with the sliced oranges and mayonnaise.
Serve the mixture on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Walnut + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts: Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter flavour that contrasts with the sweet oranges.
Oranges: Add sweetness and juicy acidity that brighten the richness of the mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the walnuts and oranges together.
Lettuce: Provides a cool, crisp base that holds the salad and adds freshness.