Why it works: Chive and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 589 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Pea Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the large marrowfat peas until tender, then let them cool.
Add coarse sea salt and Salad Dressing, omitting chives, tarragon, and onions.
Substitute with chopped mint, mix well, and arrange in a flat dish.
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.
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Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together589 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Peas + minttop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,137 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Chive + oniontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,907 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Tarragon + minttop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together125 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Peas + tarragontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together180 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, chive, tarragon, mint):
- Shallotfits better
- Lettucefits better
- Cucumberfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against peas, chive, tarragon, mint. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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