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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of sliced boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, onion, and a dressing of mustard, sweet cream, vinegar, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Slice the cold boiled potatoes very thin.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs thinly.

  3. Chop the fresh onion.

Assemble

  1. In a glass bowl or salad dish, layer the potatoes, then the eggs, and sprinkle with chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, stir the yolk of a raw egg with ½ teaspoon mustard.

  2. Beat in 3 tablespoons of sweet cream, drop by drop.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of strong vinegar and the beaten egg white until frothy.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk and body of the salad, holding the other layers together.
Eggs
Sliced whites add richness and texture, while the raw yolk helps bind the dressing.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the dressing and adds a sharp, pungent flavor.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the dressing a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Onion
Adds a sharp aroma and a bite that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Beat in the cream drop by drop. Adding cream slowly lets the egg yolk and mustard emulsify it into a smooth dressing. Pouring too fast can cause the mixture to separate or turn thin and greasy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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