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Salad

Potato Salad

A layered salad of cold boiled potatoes with a dressing of egg yolks, sugar, flour, vinegar, water, butter, salt, mustard, pepper, parsley, onion, and beet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Prepare the dressing by mixing egg yolks, sugar, flour, vinegar, water, butter, salt, mustard, and pepper in a bowl.

Assemble the salad

  1. Slice cold boiled potatoes very thin and layer them in a salad dish.

  2. Sprinkle a pinch of chopped parsley, a little grated onion, and diced beet over the potatoes.

  3. Drizzle some dressing over the layer and repeat until the dish is full.

  4. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and bits of beet.

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 + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and bind it into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Flour
Stabilises the dressing so it thickens and holds together without splitting.
Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and soak up the dressing as it is layered.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing. Egg yolks thicken only gently with heat. If the dressing is heated too fast or too long, the yolks can scramble and curdle, so it should be stirred steadily over low heat until smooth and thickened.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, vinegar, butter, mustard, 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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