Name: Apple Salad
Ingredients: tart apples; blanched almonds; white celery; 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 ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and mix

Chop equal quantities of tart apples, blanched almonds, and white celery coarsely.
Mix with a small amount of mayonnaise dressing.

Serve

Serve on lettuce leaves, topping with additional mayonnaise.

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).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Almond + celerytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together485 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples: Provide crisp texture and a tart flavour that balances the rich dressing.
Blanched almonds: Add crunch that contrasts with the softer apples and dressing.
White celery: Adds crisp, fresh crunch and a mild savoury note.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad and moistens the ingredients.