Name: Beet Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint cold beets, diced; Leaves of head lettuce; 4 pitted olives, chopped; 1 tablespoon capers; 1 gherkin, finely chopped; 1 cup mayonnaise; Hard-boiled eggs, sliced for garnish

Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beet Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the platter

Dice enough cold beets to make 1 pint and heap them in the center of a platter.
Surround the beets with leaves of head lettuce.

Make the sauce and serve

Chop the olives, capers, and gherkin very finely.
Mix the chopped ingredients with the mayonnaise.
Pour the sauce over the beets and garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Capers + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets: Provide the main bulk and earthy sweetness of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Binds the chopped olives, capers, and gherkin and adds richness and moisture.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich mayonnaise.
Gherkin: Adds tangy acidity and a crisp texture to the sauce.
Olives: Contribute a salty, savoury flavour to the dressing.