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Potato Salad

A potato salad with a boiled egg yolk and vinegar dressing, mixed with cucumbers and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Let the potatoes cool.

  3. Slice the cooled potatoes very thin.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of three eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, pepper, sugar, and celery seed to the beaten yolks.

  3. Mix the egg mixture with vinegar.

  4. Heat the mixture in a saucepan, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil.

  5. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the sliced potatoes with small cucumbers and sliced onion.

  2. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over the potato mixture.

  3. Serve.

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

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 hold their shape when sliced and cooled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the vinegar mixture into a creamy dressing when heated and emulsify it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Heating the egg and vinegar mixture. Stir constantly until it just boils. Egg yolk proteins set and thicken the dressing, but if the heat is too high or uneven, the yolks can scramble into lumps. Removing it from heat promptly keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, pepper, sugar, celery, vinegar, cucumber):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, pepper, sugar, celery, vinegar, cucumber. 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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