Name: Tartar Sauce for Fish and Crabs
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley; 2 tablespoons finely chopped pickles; 1 tablespoon capers; 1 teaspoon onion juice

Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce for Fish and Crabs

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped pickles
1 tablespoon capers
1 teaspoon onion juice

Directions

Make the sauce

In a bowl, combine mayonnaise, parsley, pickles, capers, and onion juice, then mix well until all ingredients are evenly incorporated.

Serve

Serve with tenderloin trout, soft shelled crabs, or any fish.

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.

Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,381 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Provides the fat and creamy base that holds the other ingredients together.
Capers: Add a briny, sharp flavor that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Pickles: Add acidity and a crisp texture that brightens the sauce.
Parsley: Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and visual colour.
Onion juice: Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and savory depth.