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Salad

American Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, grated onion, and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

American Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes with skins on, then peel while hot.

  2. Cut the potatoes into small pieces, about half the size of a hickory nut.

Dress and serve

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of grated onion.

  2. Cover the potatoes with mayonnaise dressing and chill on ice.

  3. Slice cold potatoes and young onions, using one-third onions.

  4. Pour a simple salad dressing over them.

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).

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 absorb the dressing as they cool.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture that coat the potato pieces and carry the flavour.
Grated onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Young onions
Add fresh, mild onion flavour and a little crunch.

The step that matters

Chill the potatoes on ice after dressing. Cooling firms the dressed potatoes and slows bacterial growth in mayonnaise-based salads, so the salad stays safe and holds its texture.

“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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