Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: cooked beetroot; cooked potatoes; pepper; coarse sea salt; Mayonnaise Sauce; 3 tablespoons good cream

Why it works: Beetroot and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 330 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the cooked beetroot and potatoes to the thickness of a penny.
Sprinkle the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Dress and serve

Incorporate 3 tablespoons of good cream into the Mayonnaise Sauce.
Pour the sauce over the salad before serving.

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.

Beetroot + potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together330 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beetroot + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,682 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the dressing's flavour.
Cooked beetroot: Adds colour and a mild, earthy sweetness to the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce: Provides fat and creaminess that coats the slices and adds moisture.
Good cream: Thins the mayonnaise and makes the dressing lighter and smoother.