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Potato Salad

A potato salad with celery, eggs, onion, and a dressing of eggs, sour cream, vinegar, butter, mustard, sugar, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 the salad base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then let them cool and cut into small bits.

  2. In a bowl, combine the potatoes, celery, mashed eggs, onion, pepper, salt, and sugar.

Make and add the dressing

  1. For the dressing, beat the eggs until light, then mix in the sour cream, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  2. Heat the dressing on the stove, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil, then let it cool.

  3. Pour the cooled dressing over the salad and refrigerate until chilled.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in the whipped cream and serve on lettuce or cabbage leaves.

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

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

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs cook into the dressing, thickening it and giving it body as it heats.
Sour cream
Adds tang and creaminess, keeping the dressing moist and smooth.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, holding their shape once cooked and chilled.
Whipped cream
Stirred in at the end to lighten the texture and add richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the eggs, cream and butter.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing until it boils. Beaten eggs can curdle or scramble if overheated, so stirring constantly keeps the dressing smooth while the egg proteins thicken it evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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