Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: cold boiled potatoes (preferably new potatoes); finely minced onion; slices of licorice root (for garnish); plain salad dressing

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

cold boiled potatoes (preferably new potatoes)
finely minced onion
slices of licorice root (for garnish)
plain salad dressing

Directions

Slice the cold boiled potatoes thinly.
Sprinkle with finely minced onion.
Garnish with slices of licorice root.
Pour salad dressing over the mixture and serve.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + licoricetop 50% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + licoricetop 98% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).