Name: Vinaigrette Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons minced parsley; 2 tablespoons capers; 2 tablespoons olives, chopped; 2 tablespoons pickles, chopped; ⅓ cup French Dressing; 1 tablespoon grated onion or garlic (optional); 2 tablespoons minced chives (optional); 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, powdered (optional)

Why it works: Capers and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vinaigrette Sauce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons minced parsley
2 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons olives, chopped
2 tablespoons pickles, chopped
⅓ cup French Dressing
1 tablespoon grated onion or garlic (optional)
2 tablespoons minced chives (optional)
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, powdered (optional)

Directions

In a bowl, combine minced parsley, capers, olives, and pickles.
Add French Dressing and mix well.
If desired, stir in grated onion or garlic.
Optionally, add minced chives and powdered egg yolks.

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.

Capers + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,907 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Capers: Their sharp, briny bite adds acidity and punch to the sauce.
Olives: Chopped olives add salty, savoury flavour and a firm bite.
Pickles: Chopped pickles add acidity and crunch that brighten the sauce.
French dressing: Supplies the liquid base and oil that carries and blends the other ingredients.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, capers, olive, chive, egg):

Shallotfits better
Welsh onionfits better
Kalefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, capers, olive, chive, egg. 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.