Skip to main content
Main

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, egg whites, green onions, celery, and a vinegar-sugar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables and eggs

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets, then peel and cut them into cubes.

  2. Chop the whites of the hard boiled eggs not too fine.

  3. Slice the green onions and cut the celery fine.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the beaten eggs, vinegar, sugar, salt, and butter. Boil until thick.

  2. Once cooled, thin the dressing with cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the potatoes, egg whites, green onions, salt, pepper, and celery together.

  2. Line a salad bowl with lettuce leaves, add the potato mixture, and garnish with chopped yolks and parsley.

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

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 hold their shape when cubed and cooled.
Beaten eggs
Thicken the vinegar dressing as they cook, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sugar and richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness to the cooked dressing.
Cream
Thins the cooled dressing and adds richness and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Boil the dressing until thick. Beaten eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating makes them scramble and curdle. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, butter. 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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes