Name: Nut Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup English walnuts; 1 cup chopped apples; ½ cup chopped celery; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Walnut and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

1 cup English walnuts
1 cup chopped apples
½ cup chopped celery
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Boil the English walnuts for 10 minutes, then blanch them.
Add the chopped apples and celery to the walnuts.
Serve the mixture with mayonnaise dressing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Walnut + appletop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that stands out against the softer ingredients.
Apples: Add juicy crispness and mild sweetness to balance the richer ingredients.
Celery: Adds fresh, crisp crunch that contrasts with the soft apple.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds creamy fat that coats the pieces and keeps the salad moist.