Name: Vegetable Salad
Ingredients: 1/4 inch pieces of celery; 1 quart canned peas; 1 pint tomatoes, finely chopped; 1 small bottle capers, drained; a few string beans, cut in half; lettuce leaves; 1 tablespoon boiled dressing per serving

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

1/4 inch pieces of celery
1 quart canned peas
1 pint tomatoes, finely chopped
1 small bottle capers, drained
a few string beans, cut in half
lettuce leaves
1 tablespoon boiled dressing per serving

Directions

Prepare

In a flat granite pan, layer the celery, peas, tomatoes, capers, and string beans.
Repeat the layering process until all vegetables are used.

Serve

Prepare small plates with lettuce leaves.
Spoon the vegetable mixture onto each plate.
Top each serving with 1 tablespoon of boiled dressing and serve.

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.

Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery: Adds crisp texture and fresh crunch to the salad.
Canned peas: Contribute sweetness and soft texture to the vegetable layers.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity that brighten the salad.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny bite that contrasts with the vegetables.
String beans: Add tender crunch and color to the layered vegetables.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, tomato, capers, beans, lettuce):

Chickpeafits better
Lentilsfits better
Black-eyed peafits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, tomato, capers, beans, 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.