Name: Dutch Cheese Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint Dutch cheese; ¼ pound English walnuts, chopped; whipped cream (as needed); lettuce leaves; salad dressing

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce 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 ↓

Dutch Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the balls

In a bowl, mix the Dutch cheese and chopped walnuts.
If the mixture is not moist enough, add a little whipped cream.
Form the mixture into small balls.
Place a walnut half on top of each ball.

Serve

Serve on lettuce leaves with 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.

Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + walnuttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together410 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,655 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together614 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Dutch cheese: Forms the soft, creamy base that holds the balls together.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft cheese.
Whipped cream: Adds moisture and softness if the cheese mixture is too dry.