Name: The Thanksgiving Dinner
Ingredients: 1 head of lettuce; 3 tablespoons oil; 1 ½ tablespoons vinegar; salt to taste; white sugar to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Lettuce and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The Thanksgiving Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash and dry the lettuce, then place it in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

Dress the lettuce with salt, sugar, pepper, oil, and vinegar, using twice the amount of oil as vinegar.
Toss the salad with a wooden spoon and fork until the dressing is well mixed.
Serve the salad at the table.

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.

Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lettuce + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,486 recipes

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