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Salad

Olive and Potato Salad

A chilled salad of diced boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, olives, French dressing, and mayonnaise served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Olive and Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and olives into small pieces.

  2. Mix the potatoes, eggs, and olives together.

  3. Pour the French dressing over the mixture.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

  2. Just before serving, mix in mayonnaise and serve on a bed of lettuce.

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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  2. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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, giving it body and a soft, starchy texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, creamy-yolked texture and richness to the salad.
Olives
Contribute salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the mild potatoes and eggs.
French dressing
Adds acidity and moisture that flavours the potatoes and eggs as they chill.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salad and adding richness.

The step that matters

Dressing before chilling. Cut potatoes absorb dressing as they rest, so pouring it over the mixture before chilling lets the acid and oil season the pieces evenly. Adding mayonnaise just before serving keeps its texture fresh and prevents it from thinning or breaking during the chill.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, lettuce):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, lettuce. 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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