Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 12 boiled potatoes; 1 pimento; salt to taste; 1 small Bermuda onion; 2 cups salad dressing; small bunch of chives or fresh onion tops; optional: a few hard boiled eggs

Why it works: Potato and chive work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 611 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the cold potatoes and the small onion.
Cut the chives or onion tops into small bits and the pimento into small pieces.
If desired, slice the hard boiled eggs and set aside.

Assemble

Add the salad dressing and seasoning in layers or mix everything together.

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 + chivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together611 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,907 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Chive + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,624 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad and hold their shape as they are cut and mixed.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture, fat and tang that coat the potatoes and bind the salad.
Bermuda onion: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the dressing.
Pimento: Adds mild sweetness and colour through the salad.