Name: Potatoes a LA Maitre D'hotel
Ingredients: potatoes; fresh butter (or oil); chopped parsley; chopped chives; coarse sea salt; black pepper; a little vinegar

Why it works: Potato and chive work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 611 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Boil the potatoes until tender, then peel and slice them.
In a stewpan, combine the potatoes with fresh butter (or oil), chopped parsley, chopped chives, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a little vinegar.
Warm 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together611 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together34,118 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + chivetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together8,303 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the chive

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

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Carrotbetter flavor fit
Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, parsley, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).