Name: Receipt for a Winter Salad
Ingredients: 2 large potatoes; 1 teaspoon mustard; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 2 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only; 1 teaspoon anchovy sauce; 1 small onion, finely chopped

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Receipt for a Winter Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

Pass the potatoes through a kitchen sieve.
Add the mustard and salt to the potatoes.
Mix in the olive oil and vinegar.
Incorporate the pounded yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

Finish and serve

Add the chopped onion and stir well.
Top with the anchovy sauce 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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,458 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the body of the salad, becoming creamy when pushed through a sieve.
Olive oil: Adds fat and smooth richness to the dressing and coats the potatoes.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Thicken the dressing and add a rich, creamy texture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the fat.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, anchovy, sauce, onion):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, anchovy, sauce, onion. 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.