Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: 1 can or 1 cup cooked shrimp; ½ cup mayonnaise; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the shrimp with lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
Add the mayonnaise and mix until well combined.
Serve chilled.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Shrimp + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,923 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Shrimp + peppertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,692 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimp: Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salad together and keeping it moist.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the mayonnaise.