Name: Salads and Salad Dressings
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked peas; cold roast lamb; finely chopped mint; chopped capers (if using boiled lamb); diced celery (if using cold pork); lemon juice (if using fish); cucumber (if using fish); French dressing, boiled dressing, or mayonnaise

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Salads and Salad Dressings

Ingredients

1 cup cooked peas
cold roast lamb
finely chopped mint
chopped capers (if using boiled lamb)
diced celery (if using cold pork)
lemon juice (if using fish)
cucumber (if using fish)
French dressing, boiled dressing, or mayonnaise

Directions

Prepare

Cut cold roast lamb into dice.
Mix with cooked peas and chopped mint.

Adjust and serve

If using boiled lamb, substitute mint with chopped capers.
For cold pork, add diced celery and a sprinkling of sage.
For fish, add lemon juice and cucumber.
Serve with a dressing of your choice.

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.

Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,998 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,222 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast lamb: Forms the main body of the salad and provides its savoury meat flavour.
Cooked peas: Add sweetness, colour and a tender, soft texture to the salad.
French dressing, boiled dressing, or mayonnaise: Adds moisture and fat, binding the salad and softening its flavours.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, lamb, mint, celery, pork, lemon, fish):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, lamb, mint, celery, pork, lemon, fish. 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.