Name: Shrimp Salad
Ingredients: boiled asparagus tips; boiled shrimps; capers; French mustard; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce leaves; toast

Why it works: Capers and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shrimp Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and combine

Cut boiled asparagus tips into short pieces.
Add an equal quantity of picked and cut boiled shrimps.
Mix in some capers and a little French mustard.
Combine thoroughly with mayonnaise dressing.

Serve

Serve on lettuce leaves with toast.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together624 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Asparagus + caperstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together75 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

Boiled shrimps: Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad's flavour.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad and gives it moisture.
Boiled asparagus tips: Adds tender texture and a fresh vegetable component that contrasts with the shrimp.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
French mustard: Adds pungency and sharpness that balances the creamy mayonnaise.