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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onion, and hard boiled eggs dressed with a sweet and acidic sour cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Cook the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets until tender.

  2. While still warm, peel and slice the potatoes with the onion.

Dress and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and celery seed.

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, vinegar or lemon juice, and sour cream to taste.

  3. Pour the dressing over the potatoes and mix gently.

  4. Garnish with sliced hard boiled eggs.

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 body of the salad and absorb the dressing as they stay warm.
Sour cream
Adds creamy richness and moisture to the dressing.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness and sweetness of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the dressing.

The step that matters

Peel and slice the potatoes while still warm. Warm potatoes take in seasoning and dressing more readily than cold ones, so the flavor distributes evenly. Cold potatoes stay firm and hold dressing mainly on the surface.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, celery, sugar, vinegar, cream, egg. 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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