Name: Jacques's French Potato Salad
Yield: About 6 cups, serving 4 to 6
Ingredients: 2 pounds fingerling potatoes or other small waxy potatoes; 1/2 cup or so extra-virgin olive oil; 1/2 cup 1/4-inch slices of scallion, green and white parts; 1/2 cup chopped onion; 3 cloves garlic, mashed and coarsely chopped (1 1/2 tsp); 1/3 cup white wine; 1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard; 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped chives; 2 tablespoons or more coarsely chopped fresh green or purple basil, fresh tarragon, or parsley; 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more if needed; 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper (coarse), plus more if needed; Large radicchio leaves, about 6, from the outside of the head; 1 or 2 hard-boiled eggs, coarsely chopped; Chopped fresh parsley

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,149 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together587 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together611 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, olive, onion, garlic, white wine, mustard, chive):

Capersfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, olive, onion, garlic, white wine, mustard, chive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Tarragon	1 tsp dried (0.5g)	2
Chives	1 tbsp (3g)	1
Basil	5 leaves fresh (2.5g)	1
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Radicchio	not in our table	0

Jacques's French Potato Salad