Name: Caviare Medallions
Ingredients: cold boiled potatoes; oil; vinegar; anchovies in oil; pickled beetroot, chopped fine; caviare; cooked egg white; stuffed olives; parsley

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Caviare Medallions

Ingredients

Directions

Cut cold boiled potatoes into 1-inch thick slices.
Stamp out rounds the size of a silver dollar and marinate in oil and vinegar.
Wipe oil from anchovies and divide each into 3 strips.
Set the strips on the edge of the potato rounds.
Fill the center with chopped pickled beetroot.
Top with ½ teaspoon of caviare.
Finish with a tiny figure cut from cooked egg white.
Arrange these in a circle on a serving dish.
Make additional medallions using rounds of beetroot as the base and chopped egg white instead of beetroot.
Finish these the same way as the first medallions.
Create more medallions with beet or potato as the base and sifted cooked egg yolk in the center.
Garnish the plate with stuffed olives and parsley.
Serve as the first course at luncheon or a chafing-dish supper.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beetroot + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together745 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + beetroottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,458 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, vinegar, egg, olive, parsley):

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, vinegar, egg, olive, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.