Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 6 cold boiled potatoes; 6 slices of cold, crisp bacon; 1 grated onion; 1 large sweet pickle, chopped fine; White Cream Dressing; watercress

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Dice the cold boiled potatoes.
Chop the bacon, onion, and sweet pickle finely.

Combine and serve

Mix the diced potatoes, chopped bacon, onion, and sweet pickle with White Cream Dressing.
Serve on a large salad platter with a watercress border.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + watercresstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together170 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + watercresstop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together533 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the salad and provide a soft, starchy body.
Bacon: Adds salty, smoky flavour and crisp contrast to the soft potatoes.
Onion: Adds sharp, aromatic bite that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Sweet pickle: Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the creamy dressing.
White cream dressing: Coats the potatoes and adds moisture and richness throughout the salad.