Name: Colcannon
Ingredients: 625 g mashed potatoes; boiled cabbage; 1 lump of butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; cooked peas, beans, or lentils (optional); spices (e.g., ground cinnamon, cloves, or curry powder)

Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Colcannon

Ingredients

Directions

Heat mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage together in a saucepan.
Add a lump of butter, salt, and pepper to taste.
For a variation, mix in cooked peas, beans, or lentils with spices.
Serve hot as a side dish.

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.

Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes: Form the bulk of the dish and give it a soft, creamy texture.
Boiled cabbage: Adds moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour to the potatoes.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother mouthfeel and savoury flavour.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cabbage, butter, pepper, cinnamon):

Beansfits better
Chestnutfits better
Chickpeafits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cabbage, butter, pepper, cinnamon. 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.