Name: Russian Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 2 cups stiff mayonnaise; 1 cup chili sauce; 3 pimentos, chopped fine; Crisp lettuce leaves

Why it works: Sauce and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Russian Salad Dressing

Ingredients

2 cups stiff mayonnaise
1 cup chili sauce
3 pimentos, chopped fine
Crisp lettuce leaves

Directions

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, chili sauce, and chopped pimentos.

Serve

Pour the dressing over crisp lettuce leaves.

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.

Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Provides the creamy, rich base and most of the dressing's body.
Chili sauce: Adds tomato-based tang and sweetness along with a mild heat.
Pimentos: Contribute mild sweetness, colour and a soft, bright flavour to the dressing.

“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.