Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Potato Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Chop the hard boiled egg, onion, lettuce, and cabbage.
In a bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with the sliced boiled potatoes.
Add the salad dressing while the mixture is still warm.
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.
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lettuce + cabbagetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together622 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lettuce + potatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together322 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,001 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,562 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
What each ingredient does
- Hard boiled egg
- Adds richness and a creamy texture to the salad.
- Boiled potatoes
- Form the body of the salad, giving it bulk and a soft, tender texture.
- Salad dressing
- Adds moisture and flavour, and coats the other ingredients.
The step that matters
Adding the dressing while the mixture is still warm. Warm potatoes absorb dressing more readily than cold ones, so the flavour penetrates the pieces instead of sitting on the surface.
Swap the cabbage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, onion, lettuce, potato):
- Chivefits better
- Leekfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Cabbagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, lettuce, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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