Name: Cherry Salad
Ingredients: 1 pound large California cherries; ½ pound shelled hazelnuts or filberts; 2 tablespoons Maraschino syrup; 1 cup sugar; ½ cup orange juice; 1 bottle Maraschino cherries; 1 cup whipped cream; Powdered sugar for sprinkling; ½ English walnut for garnish

Why it works: Hazelnut and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 112 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cherry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Stone the cherries and replace each stone with a blanched nut.

Assemble and serve

In sherbet glasses, layer alternate red and white cherries.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Top with whipped cream and garnish with half an English walnut.

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.

Hazelnut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together112 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hazelnuts or filberts: Fill the cherry stone spaces and add a crunchy, nutty contrast to the soft fruit.
Whipped cream: Adds richness and a light, creamy texture that softens the tartness of the cherries.
Maraschino cherries: Provide bright color contrast and extra sweetness alongside the fresh cherries.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hazelnut, syrup, sugar, cream, walnut):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hazelnut, syrup, sugar, cream, walnut. 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.