Name: Sweetbread and Almond Salad
Ingredients: sweetbreads; 24 almonds; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; dash of paprika; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Almond and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Sweetbread and Almond Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads as directed in 'Sweetbread Salad.'
Blanch the almonds and dry them in the oven, then chop finely.
Mix the chopped almonds with the sweetbreads, salt, paprika, and Worcestershire sauce.
Add a good stiff mayonnaise dressing and mix thoroughly.
Arrange the salad on lettuce leaves and serve immediately.

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.

Almond + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Almond + saucetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).