Name: Combination Salad
Ingredients: 3 cooked carrots, diced; 1 can sifted peas; 2 cooked beets, diced; boiled dressing, French dressing, or mayonnaise; lettuce

Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Combination Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Drain the peas carefully.
Combine the peas with the diced carrots and beets.
Moisten the mixture with your choice of dressing.
Serve the salad on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together976 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,994 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots: Add sweetness, colour and a firm, tender bite to the salad.
Peas: Provide soft, mild body and sweetness that balances the earthy vegetables.
Beets: Contribute colour, earthy sweetness and a firm texture.
Dressing: Adds moisture and fat, coating the vegetables and carrying flavour through the salad.