Name: Pear Salad
Ingredients: 6 canned pear halves; 1 cup grated cream cheese; 2 celery hearts, chopped; 1/4 cup chopped pecans; Mayonnaise dressing; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pear Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Drain and dice the canned pear halves.
Chop the celery hearts and pecans.

Make and serve the salad

In a bowl, mix the diced pears, chopped celery, chopped pecans, and mayonnaise dressing.
Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves.
Sprinkle grated cream cheese over the top of the salad.
Place four narrow strips of cheese around the salad.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pear + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cream cheese + pecanstop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pecans + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pear + pecanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81 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

Canned pear halves: Provide the sweet, juicy fruit that forms the body of the salad.
Cream cheese: Adds richness and a creamy, tangy topping.
Celery hearts: Contribute a crisp texture that contrasts with the soft pears.
Pecans: Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor.
Mayonnaise dressing: Binds the ingredients and adds moisture and fat for a creamy texture.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, cream cheese, pecans, lettuce):

Cinnamonfits better
Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, cream cheese, pecans, 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.