Why it works: Watercress and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Alabama Strawberry Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Chill the strawberries until firm.
Prepare a bed of crisp watercress on each plate.
Chop the sweet pepper and sprinkle it over the watercress.
Place the chilled strawberries in the center of the watercress and peppers.
Add a heaping spoon of mayonnaise on each plate.
Top with a large puff of whipped cream and place one strawberry in the center.
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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Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together983 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Watercress + creamtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together211 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
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