Name: Potato Salad a LA Frederic
Ingredients: 6 cold boiled potatoes; 1 small cucumber, diced; 3 stalks celery, sliced; 1 green pepper, thinly sliced; 6 green onions, thinly sliced; thick mayonnaise, highly seasoned; lettuce leaves

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad a LA Frederic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the potatoes a day before and let them cool.
Dice the cucumber and slice the celery, green pepper, and green onions.

Assemble and serve

Combine all the vegetables in a bowl and shake together.
Mix well with thick, highly seasoned mayonnaise.
Serve the salad on 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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad, providing starchy body that holds the dressing.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the vegetables and coating them with rich flavor.
Celery: Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, slightly savory crunch.
Cucumber: Adds cool moisture and crisp texture to the salad.
Green onions: Add sharp, aromatic flavor that brightens the creamy dressing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, celery, pepper, lettuce):

Mustardfits better
Beetrootfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, celery, pepper, 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.