Name: Corned Beef Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups tender corned beef, finely chopped; grated horseradish or horseradish vinegar; 2 cold boiled potatoes, diced; 1 beet, diced; French dressing

Why it works: Horseradish and potato work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 171 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Corned Beef Salad

Ingredients

2 cups tender corned beef, finely chopped
grated horseradish or horseradish vinegar
2 cold boiled potatoes, diced
1 beet, diced
French dressing

Directions

Prepare

Chop the corned beef finely and sprinkle with grated horseradish or horseradish vinegar.
Dice the cold boiled potatoes and beet.

Assemble and serve

Combine all ingredients and serve with French dressing.

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.

Horseradish + potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Beef + horseradishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Corned beef: Provides the main savoury meat body and salty, rich flavour of the salad.
Boiled potatoes: Add soft, starchy bulk that soaks up dressing and gives the salad substance.
Beet: Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid colour that brightens the salad.
Horseradish: Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the richness of the cured beef.