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Potato Salad

A salad of steamed potatoes mixed with a vinaigrette of vinegar, oil, mustard, eggs, onion, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Steam the potatoes until tender.

  2. Slice the potatoes and place them in a serving bowl.

Make and combine

  1. In a separate bowl, mix vinegar, oil, mustard, chopped eggs, and minced onion.

  2. Season the dressing with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour the dressing over the sliced potatoes 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + oniontop 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold the dressing as they are sliced and tossed.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the richness of the oil and eggs.
Oil
Provides fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the oil and vinegar into the dressing.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the dressing through their yolks and whites.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the sliced potatoes and toss gently. Warm or freshly cut potatoes absorb dressing best, so tossing gently while they are still flavorful helps coat the slices evenly without breaking them into mush.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Potatothe original

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