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Potato Salad

A salad of diced potatoes and celery tossed with a dressing of egg yolks, oil, mustard, lemon juice, and spices.

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

  1. In a bowl, combine the diced potatoes and celery.

  2. Top with chopped walnuts.

Make and add the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg yolks, oil (added slowly), onion juice, mustard, salt, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Pour the dressing over the potato mixture and gently mix.

  3. Serve immediately after adding the dressing.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, and forms the body of the emulsified dressing.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, giving a soft, starchy texture that holds the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps keep the oil and lemon juice combined.

The step that matters

Add the oil slowly while whisking the dressing. Oil must be added gradually so the egg yolks can emulsify it; adding it too fast causes the dressing to break and separate into greasy liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, walnut, egg, mustard, lemon, pepper. 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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