Name: Strawberry Salad
Ingredients: large firm strawberries; crisp yellow lettuce; thick whipped cream; sweetener; thick mayonnaise

Why it works: Lettuce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,121 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Strawberry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the strawberries

Wash and dry the strawberries well.
Remove the hulls and slice or quarter the strawberries.

Assemble

Arrange about 2 tablespoons of strawberries in crisp yellow lettuce cups.
Cover the strawberries with thick whipped cream sweetened to taste.
Top with a spoonful of thick mayonnaise.

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 + creamtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large firm strawberries: Provide the main fruit, with firm flesh that holds its shape when sliced.
Thick whipped cream: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture that coats the fruit.
Sweetener: Adds sweetness to balance the tart fruit and cream.
Thick mayonnaise: Adds richness and a tangy, savory note to the topping.

“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.