Name: Salmagundi Salad
Ingredients: 3 good sized potatoes, boiled and sliced thin; 2 small cucumbers, chopped fine; 1 small cup French peas; 2 medium sized apples, chopped fine; 1 cup celery, chopped fine; 3 hard boiled eggs; finely shredded lettuce; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmagundi Salad

Ingredients

3 good sized potatoes, boiled and sliced thin
2 small cucumbers, chopped fine
1 small cup French peas
2 medium sized apples, chopped fine
1 cup celery, chopped fine
3 hard boiled eggs
finely shredded lettuce
mayonnaise dressing

Directions

Prepare

Boil potatoes until cooked, then slice thinly.
Chop cucumbers, apples, and celery finely.

Assemble and serve

Mix potatoes, cucumbers, peas, apples, celery, and hard-boiled eggs together.
Cover the mixture with finely shredded lettuce.
Pour mayonnaise dressing over the salad.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together629 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the bulk and starchy body of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the mix.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad and softening its crisp pieces.
Apples: Add sweetness and a crisp, juicy contrast to the savoury vegetables.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, peas, celery, egg, lettuce):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, peas, celery, egg, 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.