Name: Apple Salad
Ingredients: 1 large apple; 1 stalk celery; 2 tablespoons English walnuts; 1 teaspoon sugar; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the apple and celery.
Combine the chopped apple, celery, walnuts, and sugar in a bowl.
Add mayonnaise dressing to taste and mix well.

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.

Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,147 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apple: Provides crisp texture and natural sweetness to the salad.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, mild vegetal flavor.
English walnuts: Contribute crunch and a rich, slightly bitter nuttiness.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad and carries its flavor.