Name: Macaroni Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked macaroni; ½ cup mayonnaise; 1 green sweet pepper, chopped; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 1 canned pimento, chopped; Lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Macaroni Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

In a bowl, combine the cooked macaroni, mayonnaise, chopped green pepper, lemon juice, and chopped pimento.
Mix well until all ingredients are evenly coated.

Serve

Serve the mixture on a bed of lettuce leaves.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked macaroni: Forms the bulk of the salad and gives it a chewy, substantial texture.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the pasta and vegetables into a creamy coating.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.
Green sweet pepper: Contributes crisp crunch and fresh, mildly sweet flavour.