Name: Peach- And- Almond Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart ripe yellow peaches; ½ cup blanched almonds; ⅔ cup mayonnaise; ⅓ cup whipped cream; Lettuce leaves; Powdered sugar; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach- And- Almond Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel the peaches and cut them into slices.
Slice the blanched almonds very thin.

Assemble and serve

Mix the peaches and almonds with the mayonnaise and whipped cream.
Serve immediately on lettuce leaves.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and vanilla extract.

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.

Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together558 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Almond + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together210 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches: Provide sweetness, juiciness and fresh fruit flavor to the salad.
Almonds: Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, binding the fruit and nuts into a dressing.
Whipped cream: Adds lightness and a smooth, rich texture to the dressing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, almond, cream, sugar, vanilla):

Arrowrootfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Beetrootfits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, almond, cream, sugar, vanilla. 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.