Name: Beet and Potato Salad
Ingredients: cooked beets; tarragon vinegar; boiled potatoes; Ravigote sauce

Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beet and Potato Salad

Ingredients

cooked beets
tarragon vinegar
boiled potatoes
Ravigote sauce

Directions

Form small balls of cooked beets and place them in tarragon vinegar.
Form small balls of boiled potatoes and place them in Ravigote sauce.
Arrange the beet and potato balls alternately on a serving dish.

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.

Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tarragon + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Tarragon + saucetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Vinegar + potatotop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,608 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,073 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).