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Potato Salad

A cold salad of sliced potatoes tossed with a mustard vinaigrette and celery or onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, water, mustard, pepper, salt, and butter in a pot.

  2. Heat until simmering.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a large bowl, mix sliced potatoes with chopped celery or onion.

  2. Pour the hot dressing over the potato mixture and toss gently.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 soak up the dressing as they absorb its flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the starch and fat.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the warm dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Pour the hot dressing over the potatoes. Warm potato starch absorbs dressing far better than cold potatoes, so the flavour penetrates. Tossing gently keeps the slices from breaking apart.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, butter, egg, vinegar, celery):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, butter, egg, vinegar, celery. 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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