Skip to main content
Salad

Adirondack Salad

A cold salad of French peas, cheese, onions, pickles, nuts or mushrooms, dressed with mayonnaise and served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Adirondack Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the can of French peas and drain.

  2. Combine the peas with cheese and onions.

  3. Add sweet pickles, nuts, or mushrooms as desired.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix in mayonnaise dressing until well coated.

  2. Serve cold on a bed of 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.

  1. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

French peas
Provide the main bulk and mild sweetness of the salad.
Cheese
Adds richness and a savory, slightly firm texture to the mix.
Onions
Contribute sharp aroma and a bit of bite that cuts the richness.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the ingredients together with a creamy coating.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, cheese, onion, lettuce):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, cheese, onion, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes