Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: cold boiled potatoes; coarse sea salt; black pepper; chopped parsley; 2 parts oil; 1 part vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the cold boiled potatoes.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and chopped parsley.

Dress and rest

Mix the oil and vinegar in a 2:1 ratio.
Pour the dressing over the potatoes.
Let it stand for 1 hour 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad and hold the dressing on their cut surfaces.
Oil: Adds fat and carries flavour through the salad, giving a smoother mouthfeel.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.