Name: Egg Salad
Ingredients: 6 cold hard boiled eggs; cold asparagus tips; Cream Dressing; paprika; parsley

Why it works: Asparagus and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Egg Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the hard-boiled eggs.
Place the cold asparagus tips in a salad dish.
Add a layer of cream dressing.
Add a layer of sliced eggs.
Add another layer of cream dressing.
Add a layer of asparagus tips.
Add more cream dressing.
Top with a final layer of sliced eggs.
Sprinkle paprika and parsley over the top.

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.

Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Egg + asparagustop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,338 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Asparagus + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together838 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the main body of the salad as sliced layers with a firm, mild texture.
Cream dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the layers and softening the eggs and asparagus.
Asparagus tips: Add a crisp, fresh texture and a green vegetable note between the egg layers.