Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 10 cold boiled potatoes; 2 tablespoons mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons cream; 1 teaspoon tarragon vinegar; ½ teaspoon salt; cayenne pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; celery for garnish

Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the potatoes into dice shapes.

Make the dressing

In a bowl, mix mayonnaise, cream, tarragon vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Assemble and serve

Layer the diced potatoes and sauce in a serving dish, finishing with potatoes on top.
Garnish with celery cut into julienne and soaked in cold water for 1 hour.

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.

Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tarragon + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together456 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad, providing body and substance to every bite.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, coating the potatoes and binding the salad together.
Cream: Thins the mayonnaise and adds smoothness and a richer mouthfeel to the dressing.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity and a sharp, aromatic note that balances the richness of the dressing.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, parsley, celery):

Mustardfits better
Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, parsley, celery. 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.