Name: Fish Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup cold cooked fish, broken into pieces; 2 cups cold boiled potatoes, cubed; 1 cup strained peas; 2 tablespoons olive oil; salad dressing to moisten; hard boiled eggs for garnish

Why it works: Potato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,458 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

1 cup cold cooked fish, broken into pieces
2 cups cold boiled potatoes, cubed
1 cup strained peas
2 tablespoons olive oil
salad dressing to moisten
hard boiled eggs for garnish

Directions

Make the salad

In a bowl, mix together the cold cooked fish, cubed potatoes, and strained peas lightly.
Add the olive oil and moisten with salad dressing.

Rest and serve

Let the mixture stand for one hour.
Garnish with hard boiled eggs before serving.

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 + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,458 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Peas + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,066 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).
Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,016 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + peastop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together90 recipes

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