Name: Asparagus Salad, with Shrimps
Ingredients: Asparagus (prepared as in recipe No. 78); ½ quantity of picked shrimps; Salt and pepper to taste; 3 hard boiled egg yolks; ½ cup olive oil; A few drops of vinegar; Additional hard boiled eggs for garnish

Why it works: Asparagus and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,096 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad, with Shrimps

Ingredients

Asparagus (prepared as in recipe No. 78)
½ quantity of picked shrimps
Salt and pepper to taste
3 hard boiled egg yolks
½ cup olive oil
A few drops of vinegar
Additional hard boiled eggs for garnish

Directions

Prepare the asparagus as directed in recipe No. 78.
Add half the quantity of picked shrimps and season with salt and pepper.
In a bowl, rub the yolks of three hard boiled eggs through a sieve.
Slowly add ½ cup of olive oil and a few drops of vinegar while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Pour the sauce over the salad, arrange it nicely, and garnish with hard boiled eggs cut into quarters.

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.

Asparagus + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,096 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,968 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Asparagus + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, pepper, egg, olive, vinegar):

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well
Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, pepper, egg, olive, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.