Name: French Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups boiled potatoes, sliced; 1 cup tomatoes, sliced; 1 cup beets, sliced; 2 hard boiled eggs, sliced; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 cup mayonnaise; 1 cup green lettuce or cress, for decoration

Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

In a salad dish, layer the sliced boiled potatoes, tomatoes, beets, and hard boiled eggs.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and vinegar.
Top with mayonnaise.

Finish

Decorate with green lettuce or cress.

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.

Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes: Form the bulk of the layers and give the salad its hearty, starchy body.
Mayonnaise: Adds richness and moisture, binding the layers together with a creamy fat.
Hard boiled eggs: Add a soft, creamy texture and mild richness to the layered salad.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts through the mayonnaise.
Beets: Contribute earthy sweetness and a vivid color to the layers.

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits better
Cucumberfits better
Mustardfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, egg, pepper, vinegar, 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.