Name: Watercress Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups watercress; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon grated horseradish (optional); 1 small leek, sliced (optional); 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced (optional)

Why it works: Watercress and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 66 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Watercress Salad

Ingredients

2 cups watercress
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon grated horseradish (optional)
1 small leek, sliced (optional)
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Rinse the watercress and place it in a salad bowl.
In a small bowl, mix the lemon juice and olive oil.

Dress and serve

Pour the dressing over the watercress.
If desired, add grated horseradish, sliced leeks, and sliced hard-boiled eggs.
Toss gently to combine.

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.

Watercress + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together66 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + leektop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Watercress: Forms the leafy base of the salad and provides a fresh, peppery flavor.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Olive oil: Carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, coating texture.

Swap the horseradish

The recipe marks horseradish as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, lemon, olive, leek, egg):

Chivefits better
Shallotfits better
Spinachfits better
Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, lemon, olive, leek, 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.