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German Salad

A potato salad with bacon, onion, vinegar, and green salad garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

German Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until they are soft enough to stick a fork in, then drain and let them cool uncovered for 15 minutes.

  2. Slice the onion very finely.

  3. Cut the bacon into small dice and fry until crisp and brown.

Assemble the salad

  1. Once the potatoes are cool, peel and slice them thinly, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix in the sliced onion, fried bacon, and the fat from the pan. Add the vinegar and toss to combine.

  3. Garnish with green salad.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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 body of the salad, holding their shape while absorbing the dressing.
Smoked bacon
Adds smoky, salty flavour and rendered fat that carries flavour through the salad.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and crunch when sliced very finely.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the bacon fat.

The step that matters

Slice the potatoes while they are still cool. Cooled cooked potatoes hold their shape when sliced thinly, while warm ones tend to crumble or turn mushy. Boiling until just soft, then cooling, helps the slices stay intact and absorb the dressing evenly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, 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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