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Hot Potato Salad

A hot potato salad made with boiled potatoes, bacon fat, mustard, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hot Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and bacon

  1. Boil five or six large potatoes until cooked, then cut them into thin slices while hot.

  2. Fry thin slices of bacon and cut into small pieces until there is a half cupful of bacon pieces.

  3. Pour off the bacon fat from the frying pan, leaving two tablespoonfuls of fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir a teaspoon of flour into the hot fat, along with a quarter teaspoon of mustard, an eighth teaspoon of pepper, and a quarter teaspoon of salt.

  2. Stir the mixture to a smooth paste.

  3. Stir in a half cup of vinegar.

  4. Let the mixture come to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the hot potatoes with the sauce.

  2. Serve while hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

167Calories
4 gProtein
0 gFat
37 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + potatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the salad, absorbing the warm dressing as they are mixed in.
Bacon (in the method)
Adds savory, smoky flavor and crisp pieces, and its fat carries the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the hot bacon fat into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich bacon fat.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the hot fat to a smooth paste. Flour must be fully worked into the hot fat so it cooks briefly and thickens evenly; adding it lumpy or to cold fat leaves clumps and a raw floury taste.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Radishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, 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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