Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Potato Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes until tender, then slice them.
In a large bowl, combine the sliced potatoes, broken walnut meats, chopped olives, and capers or nasturtium seeds.
Add mayonnaise dressing with cream to the mixture and stir gently to combine.
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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Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,688 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Walnut + olivetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,087 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,458 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Walnut + caperstop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together156 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together224 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Form the bulk of the salad, providing body and a soft, starchy texture.
- Mayonnaise dressing with cream
- Adds fat and creaminess that moistens the potatoes and binds the salad together.
- English walnuts
- Add crunch and a nutty, rich flavour that contrasts with the soft potatoes.
- Pickled olives
- Add briny acidity and savoury tang that cut through the rich dressing.
The step that matters
Boil the potatoes until tender. Potatoes that are undercooked stay firm and hold their shape poorly, while overcooked ones turn mushy and fall apart. Cooking them until just tender lets them absorb the dressing while keeping pieces intact.
Swap the capers
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, meat, walnut, olive, cream):
- Garlicfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Capersthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, walnut, olive, cream. 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.
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