Why it works: Cucumber and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Potato Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes in their jackets until tender.
Peel and cut the potatoes into dice.
Place the diced potatoes in a colander and marinate with French dressing infused with a few drops of onion.
Once cold, moisten the potatoes slightly with mayonnaise mixed with minced cucumber pickles and capers.
Layer the salad in a bowl, starting with potatoes, then a thin layer of salted cucumbers, followed by a spoonful of mayonnaise.
Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with potatoes and a generous amount of mayonnaise on top.
Garnish with pitted olives, cold boiled beets cut into desired shapes, and hard boiled eggs or capers.
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.
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Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together303 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,688 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
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Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,458 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together224 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, capers, olive, egg):
- Chivefits better
- Shallotfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, capers, olive, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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