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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of sliced boiled potatoes, onion, and hard‑boiled egg yolks dressed with mustard, sugar, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 boiled potatoes and the large onion.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, cream the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Beat in the sugar, prepared mustard, white mustard seed, salad oil, and vinegar until smooth.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and chill in the refrigerator until served.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold the dressing between their slices.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Creamed into the dressing, giving it body and a rich, smooth texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat to the dressing, carrying flavour and giving it a smooth, emulsified texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sugar and richness.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with gentle sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the dressing until smooth. Creaming the yolks and beating in the oil and vinegar gradually lets the fat and liquid emulsify into a stable, even dressing. If it is rushed, the oil can separate and leave the salad greasy and uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, egg, sugar, mustard, 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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