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Potato Salad

A cold salad of diced boiled potatoes, cucumber or onion, hard‑cooked eggs, celery seed, and thinned dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the potatoes and cucumber (or egg whites) into small dice.

  2. Grate the onion and mix it with the potatoes, cucumber, and celery seed.

Dress and chill

  1. Add the salad dressing and mix gently to avoid mashing the potatoes.

  2. Let the salad stand in a cold place for at least 1 hour before serving.

  3. If using eggs, rub the yolks through a sieve and sprinkle over the salad just before serving.

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

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

  2. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the main body and bulk, holding their shape when cold and diced.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture and richness that coats the potatoes and binds the salad.
Eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture when the sieved yolks are sprinkled on top.
Celery seed
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor that brightens the dressing.

The step that matters

Mix gently after adding the dressing. Rough mixing breaks down the cut potato pieces, turning them mushy and pasty. Gentle folding keeps the dice intact, so the salad has a pleasant texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, egg. 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 potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

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