Name: Celery Salad
Ingredients: 3 hard-boiled eggs; chopped parsley; thin slices of German sausage or pink ham (optional)

Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Celery Salad

Ingredients

3 hard-boiled eggs
chopped parsley
thin slices of German sausage or pink ham (optional)

Directions

Cut the whites of the hard-boiled eggs into rings.
Rub the yolks through a wire sieve onto the salad.
Sprinkle chopped parsley on top.
Add thin slices of German sausage or pink ham around the salad if desired.

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.

Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + hamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,249 recipes

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