Name: Walnut Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup English walnuts, quartered; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; ½ cup olives, quartered; ½ cup celery, chopped; ⅓ cup mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons cream

Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine the quartered walnuts and lemon juice in a bowl.
Let the mixture sit for 15-20 minutes.

Assemble and dress

Add the quartered olives and chopped celery to the walnuts.
Dress the mixture with mayonnaise.
Thin the dressing with cream as needed.

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.

Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Walnut + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,087 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + celerytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts: Provide the crunchy, nutty body of the salad.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the salad.
Olives: Contribute salty, briny flavour and a firm texture.
Celery: Adds crisp, fresh crunch to the salad.
Mayonnaise: Provides fat and creaminess that binds the salad together.
Cream: Loosens the mayonnaise dressing to a lighter, spreadable consistency.