Name: Apple and Nut Salad
Ingredients: 3 cups apples, pared, cored, and thinly sliced; 1 cup chopped nuts; Sugar, to taste; Salt, to taste; Boiled salad dressing

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple and Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pare, core, and slice the apples thinly.

Combine and season

Mix the apples with the chopped nuts.
Season with sugar and salt to taste.
Combine with boiled salad dressing.

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.

Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + nutstop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,228 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Apples: Provide the crisp, juicy body and fresh bulk of the salad.
Chopped nuts: Add crunch and a toasty, rich contrast to the soft apple slices.
Boiled salad dressing: Adds moisture and a tangy, creamy coating that binds the salad together.