Name: Banana Salad
Ingredients: 3 or 4 slices of banana; 1 lettuce leaf; salad dressing; grated walnuts

Why it works: Lettuce and walnut 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 ↓

Banana Salad

Ingredients

3 or 4 slices of banana
1 lettuce leaf
salad dressing
grated walnuts

Directions

Place the banana slices on a lettuce leaf.
Top with salad dressing and grated walnuts.
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.

Lettuce + walnuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together198 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Banana: Provides natural sweetness and a soft, creamy texture against the crisp lettuce.
Grated walnuts: Add a crunchy texture and a mildly bitter, nutty flavour that contrasts the sweet banana.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and acidity, bringing the flavours together and seasoning the salad.