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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with parsley, onion, salt, pepper, oil or butter, and vinegar, optionally with beet and cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Boil the small potatoes until tender.

  2. While warm, peel and slice the potatoes thinly.

  3. Chop the parsley and onion, then add to the sliced potatoes.

Dress and serve

  1. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour over 2-3 tablespoons of oil or melted butter.

  3. Moisten the salad with vinegar.

  4. If desired, add sliced beet and cucumber before mixing in oil and vinegar.

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

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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

Small potatoes
Form the body of the salad and absorb the dressing as they are sliced warm.
Oil or melted butter
Adds fat and coats the potatoes, giving a smoother mouthfeel and richer flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the fat.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and a pungent bite.

The step that matters

Slice the potatoes while warm. Warm potatoes are more tender and porous, so they absorb the oil and vinegar well. Once cooled and firm, they resist dressing and can taste bland or dry.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, parsley, onion, pepper, butter, vinegar):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, onion, pepper, butter, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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