Name: Egg Salad
Ingredients: 12 hard-boiled eggs; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 3 stalks celery, diced; 3-4 lettuce leaves, finely chopped; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 2 teaspoons sugar; ¼ cup vinegar; ¼ cup mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Egg Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the hard-boiled eggs.
Add the chopped onion, diced celery, chopped lettuce, pepper, salt, and sugar.

Mix and serve

Stir in the vinegar and mayonnaise dressing until well combined.
Serve on lettuce leaves with additional mayonnaise dressing on top.

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main body and texture of the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad into a creamy mixture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and mayonnaise flavor.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft eggs.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, celery, lettuce, pepper, sugar, vinegar):

Mustardfits better
Capsicumfits better
Cucumberfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, celery, lettuce, pepper, sugar, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.