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Egg Salad

A salad of boiled eggs, potatoes, onions, and cream 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 ↓

Egg Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and dice

  1. Boil the eggs until the yolks are very mealy.

  2. Boil the potatoes with their jackets on.

  3. Peel the eggs and potatoes, then cut them into dice.

Assemble

  1. Add the diced onions.

  2. Layer the eggs and potatoes alternately until all are used.

  3. Pour cream salad dressing over the top.

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 + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide body and richness, with mealy yolks giving the salad a soft, crumbly texture.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk and a soft texture that holds the layers together.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that cuts through the richness of the eggs.
Cream salad dressing
Adds moisture and fat, binding the diced eggs and potatoes and making the salad creamy.

The step that matters

Boiling the eggs until the yolks are very mealy. Overcooking eggs causes the yolk to turn dry and grey-green at the surface, while the timing controls how crumbly the yolk becomes. Stopping the cooking promptly in cold water keeps the yolks evenly cooked and easy to dice.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, potato, cream. 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.

More egg salad recipes

Dressing 26Anchovy 10Sandwich 8Sardine 6Cold 4Spinach 4 See all 143 →

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