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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onion, and eggs dressed with vinegar, mustard, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then cool and peel them.

  2. Chop the potatoes, onion, and egg whites together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, raw egg yolk, vinegar, mustard, and celery seed.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the dressing with the chopped mixture and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix well and serve.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 cook until tender.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the vinegar and mustard to give the dressing a creamy, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Egg whites
Add chopped texture and mild bulk to the salad without making the dressing heavy.

The step that matters

Combining the dressing with the chopped mixture. Mixing gently keeps the potato pieces from breaking down into mash. Cooled potatoes also absorb dressing better than warm ones, so the salad stays well seasoned and holds its shape.

Swap the potato

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

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

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