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Salad

Potato Salad

A cold salad of boiled potatoes, celery, onion, and a vinaigrette of vinegar, cream, egg yolks, butter, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

  1. Cut the potatoes and celery into small blocks.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add the cream to the boiling vinegar and let it boil once.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, butter, and cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the potatoes and celery just 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with heat, giving it body and a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar and softening the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour and balances the richness.
Flour
Stabilises the cream so it thickens gently and resists splitting when heated.

The step that matters

Adding the cream to the boiling vinegar. Once the cream and hot vinegar meet, the dressing can curdle or separate if it is overheated. Letting it boil only once keeps it smooth and stable.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, egg, vinegar, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, egg, vinegar, cream, flour, 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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