Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 1 pound mashed potato; ¼ pound mashed beet; 2 tablespoons salad oil; 2 tablespoons vinegar; pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; parsley, chopped fine to taste

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mashed potato and mashed beet until smooth.
Add the salad oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley, then mix well to combine all ingredients.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 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

Mashed potato: Forms the bulk of the salad and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Mashed beet: Adds colour and a mild sweetness that tints the whole salad.
Salad oil: Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries flavour through the mash.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the starch and sweetness.