Name: Cherry Salad
Ingredients: pitted Royal Ann cherries; hazel nuts; pecans; walnuts; nasturtium blossoms; chicory; French dressing or mayonnaise

Why it works: Walnut and chicory share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cherry Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Stuff the pitted Royal Ann cherries with hazel nuts, pecans, or walnuts.
Arrange the stuffed cherries on a bed of nasturtium blossoms and chicory.
Serve with French dressing or 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.

Walnut + chicorytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pecans + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together634 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Nuts + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Nuts + pecanstop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Pecans + chicorytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).