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Potato Salad

A salad of mashed potatoes, onions, egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, celery seed, butter, and pepper, garnished with hard‑boiled egg slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then peel and mash them.

  2. Mince the onions and add them to the mashed potatoes.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, make a dressing by mixing the egg yolks, vinegar, black pepper, celery seed, mustard, melted butter, and salt.

  2. Combine the dressing with the potato mixture and mix well.

  3. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs before serving.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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, providing starchy body once boiled and mashed.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and mustard to give the dressing a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the dressing.
Mustard
Contributes sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsified dressing.
Celery seed
Adds a distinctive savoury, aromatic flavour characteristic of classic potato salad.

The step that matters

Combining the dressing with the potatoes. Mix gently but thoroughly so the dressing coats the mashed potato evenly. Potato that is still warm absorbs the dressing more readily, so uneven mixing leaves pockets of bland potato or greasy patches.

Swap the onion

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

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

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