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Salad

German Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onions, vinegar, hot water, parsley, salt, pepper, bacon, and flour.

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 ↓

German Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the sliced boiled potatoes and finely sliced onions.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the vinegar and hot water.

  3. Add the vinegar mixture to the potatoes and onions.

  4. Season with parsley, coarse sea salt, and black pepper to taste.

Add bacon and flour

  1. Fry the bacon cubes until crispy.

  2. Mix in a little flour.

  3. Add the bacon and flour mixture to the salad and mix thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the tangy vinegar dressing.
Onions
Add sharp, pungent flavor that softens somewhat in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the bacon.
Bacon
Adds savory, smoky flavor and fat, with crisp texture when fried.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar liquid so it clings to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Mixing the bacon and flour into the salad. Flour clumps if it is not evenly distributed, so the bacon and flour mixture must be stirred through thoroughly. Even distribution lets the flour thicken the liquid evenly and coat the potatoes and onions.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, vinegar, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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