Name: Walnut Salad— No. 2
Ingredients: Lettuce; 2 hard-boiled eggs; English walnuts; Salad dressing (Yacht-Club dressing recommended); Crisp lettuce for serving

Why it works: Lettuce and walnut 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 ↓

Walnut Salad— No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the lettuce and the whites of the hard-boiled eggs separately, not too fine.
Toss the lettuce and egg whites lightly together.

Assemble and serve

Sprinkle the top thickly with chopped English walnuts and the coarsely chopped yolks of the eggs.
Pour over any good salad dressing and serve on crisp lettuce.

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 + walnuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Egg whites and yolks add body and a rich, savory flavor to the salad.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft egg and crisp lettuce.
Lettuce: Provides the crisp, watery base that gives the salad its fresh texture.