Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart boiled potatoes, sliced; 1 teacup cabbage, shredded; 1 small onion; 1½ tablespoons butter; 1½ tablespoons drippings; ½ cup vinegar; 2 tablespoons sweet cream; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Potato and onion 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the onion in drippings until it begins to yellow.
Add the flour and stir until combined.
Pour in the vinegar and mix well.
Add the sliced potatoes and shredded cabbage, stirring to combine.
Pour the sweet cream over the mixture.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 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

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, butter, vinegar, cream, pepper):

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, butter, vinegar, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.