Name: Russian Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup cold, boiled potatoes, diced; 1 cup white beans, diced; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 1 stalk celery, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped; 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped; ½ cup French dressing or 2 tablespoons mayonnaise with mustard; Lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Russian Salad

Ingredients

1 cup cold, boiled potatoes, diced
1 cup white beans, diced
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
½ cup French dressing or 2 tablespoons mayonnaise with mustard
Lettuce leaves for serving

Directions

Combine the diced potatoes and white beans in a bowl.
Add the salt, onion, celery, and parsley, mixing well.
Fold in the chopped hard boiled eggs.
Drizzle with French dressing or mayonnaise and mix thoroughly.
Serve on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the bulk of the salad with a soft, starchy body that holds the dressing.
White beans: Add creamy body and substance, making the salad more filling.
Hard boiled eggs: Contribute rich, soft texture and extra body to the salad.
French dressing or mayonnaise: Adds moisture and fat, coating the pieces and carrying the flavor throughout.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, beans, celery, parsley, egg, mustard, lettuce):

Chivefits better
Beetrootfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beans, celery, parsley, egg, mustard, lettuce. 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.