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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of sliced potatoes, onions, parsley, salt, vinegar, and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Slice the cold potatoes.

  2. Chop the onions and parsley.

Combine and serve

  1. In a large dish, combine the potatoes, onions, parsley, salt, and vinegar to taste.

  2. Before serving, add mayonnaise dressing and serve very cold, straight from the ice.

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body of the salad.
Onions
Add sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and seasons the potatoes.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad and moistens the potatoes.

The step that matters

Add the mayonnaise dressing just before serving. Adding the dressing at the last moment keeps the potatoes from soaking it up and turning soggy. Serving it very cold keeps the fat in the dressing firm and the flavours fresh.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, vinegar. 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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