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Salad

Potato Salad

A chilled salad of sliced boiled potatoes, celery, onion, pepper, salt, egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, parsley or almonds, served in pepper shells with radishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cold boiled potatoes very thin.

  2. Mix with chopped celery and onion.

  3. Season to taste with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Dress and serve

  1. Rub the yolks of two hard boiled eggs with olive oil and vinegar.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or ground salted almonds.

  3. Serve in green pepper shells and garnish with radishes.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold the dressing between their slices.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mash into the dressing to add richness and a creamy texture.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour through the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, pepper, egg, olive, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, pepper, egg, olive, vinegar, parsley. 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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