Name: Sauce Tyeolienne
Ingredients: ½ cup Mayonnaise Dressing; 1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped; 1 gherkin, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons tomato puree

Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Tyeolienne

Ingredients

½ cup Mayonnaise Dressing
1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped
1 gherkin, finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato puree

Directions

Mix the Mayonnaise Dressing, parsley, capers, gherkin, and tomato puree in the order given.
Cook half a can of tomatoes until reduced to three tablespoons, then strain through a sieve to make tomato puree.
Chill the sauce before serving.

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.

Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Capers + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Forms the creamy base, providing fat and moisture that give the sauce its body.
Capers: Add a briny, sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Tomato puree: Adds concentrated tomato flavour and a warm colour to the sauce.