Name: Artichoke Salad
Ingredients: young artichokes; lettuce; Hygia dressing or olive oil

Why it works: Artichoke and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 101 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Artichoke Salad

Ingredients

young artichokes
lettuce
Hygia dressing or olive oil

Directions

Wash the young artichokes thoroughly.
Quarter the artichokes.
Serve the artichokes on a lettuce leaf.
Drizzle with Hygia dressing or olive oil.

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.

Artichoke + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together101 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Artichoke + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together745 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).