Name: Yegetable Salad
Ingredients: cold cooked potatoes; cold cooked peas; cold cooked string beans; cold cooked shell beans; cold cooked beets; mayonnaise or any salad dressing

Why it works: Potato and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Yegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Chill the leftover vegetables on ice.
Cover the chilled vegetables with mayonnaise or your choice of salad dressing.
Serve immediately.

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 + beanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together949 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,016 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked potatoes: Provide the bulk and starchy body of the salad.
Cold cooked peas: Add sweetness and soft texture to the mix.
Cold cooked string beans: Contribute crisp-tender texture and fresh flavor.
Cold cooked shell beans: Add creamy texture and a mild, earthy flavor.
Cold cooked beets: Add earthy sweetness and a vivid color.
Mayonnaise or any salad dressing: Adds moisture, richness and fat that coats the vegetables.