Name: Pot-au-Feu
Ingredients: 2 quarts pale clear stock; 2 tablespoons minced cucumber pickle; vinegar to taste; 2 teaspoons capers and their liquid; 2 teaspoons mango chutney or pickle; salt and pepper to taste; 1 teacup sour cream; 2-3 ounces fine flour or rice flour

Why it works: Cucumber and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-Feu

Ingredients

2 quarts pale clear stock
2 tablespoons minced cucumber pickle
vinegar to taste
2 teaspoons capers and their liquid
2 teaspoons mango chutney or pickle
salt and pepper to taste
1 teacup sour cream
2-3 ounces fine flour or rice flour

Directions

In a pot, combine the stock, cucumber pickle, vinegar, capers with their liquid, mango chutney, salt, and pepper.
Boil until the flavors blend.
Mix the flour or rice flour with a little stock to create a smooth paste.
Add the paste to the soup and boil again.
Serve hot.

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.

Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together471 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Capers + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,024 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Cucumber + mangotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together116 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, vinegar, capers, pepper, cream, flour):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, vinegar, capers, pepper, cream, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.