Name: Russian Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup cold cooked chicken, diced; 1 cup cold cooked tongue, diced; 1 cup cold cooked fish, diced; 2 carrots, diced; 4 potatoes, diced; 1 cup string beans, cooked; mayonnaise; lettuce leaves; 1 tablespoon capers

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 ↓

Russian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Dice the cold chicken, tongue, and fish.

Arrange and serve

Arrange them on a dish in three sections.
Place the tongue in the middle, with a border of diced carrots, potatoes, and string beans.
Before serving, pour mayonnaise evenly over the salad.
Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves.
Garnish with capers.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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).
Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,443 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + caperstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together76 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Adds richness and moisture, coating the diced pieces with fat and creaminess.
Potatoes: Provide starchy bulk and a soft texture that holds the salad together.
Carrots: Add sweetness, colour, and a firm bite against the softer ingredients.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, fish, potato, beans, lettuce, capers):

Mustardfits better
Chivefits better
Beetrootfits better
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, fish, potato, beans, lettuce, capers. 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.