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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onions, parsley, and a mustard‑egg dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes carefully until tender, then let them cool.

  2. Slice the cooled potatoes thinly.

  3. Mix the minced onions and parsley with the potatoes.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Moisten the dry mustard with water, then add the egg yolks.

  2. Beat the mixture until well combined, then gradually add salad oil while beating until thickened.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and pour the dressing over the potatoes, mixing well.

  4. Garnish with salad leaves or celery tops if desired.

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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 absorb the dressing as they cool and soften.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and water into a thick, creamy dressing that holds together.
Salad oil
Provides fat that, beaten into the yolks, thickens the dressing and adds richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the egg yolk emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the salad oil to the yolks. Oil must be added slowly while beating so the egg yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the dressing to split and fail to thicken.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, parsley, pepper, mustard, egg, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, pepper, mustard, egg, vinegar. 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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