Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Egg Salad Mayonnaise
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the eggs until hard, then cool and peel them.
Chop the eggs into small pieces.
In a bowl, mix the chopped eggs with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper to taste.
Serve the egg mixture on a bed of lettuce leaves.
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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Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,037 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,301 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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