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Salad

Potato Salad

A chilled potato salad with vinegar, olive oil, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into slices, ¼ to ½ inch thick.

  2. Place the potato slices in a salad bowl.

Dress and rest

  1. Add vinegar, cream oil, chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Stir well until thoroughly mixed.

  3. Set aside for three hours 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 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 and absorb the dressing as they rest.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the oil.
Cream oil
Provides fat and richness that coats the potato slices.

The step that matters

Stir well until thoroughly mixed. Dressing added to warm or unevenly coated potatoes can be absorbed unevenly. Thorough stirring spreads the vinegar and oil over every slice so the flavour is consistent.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cream, parsley, 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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