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Salad

Potato Salad

A chilled salad of cubed boiled potatoes, onion, oil, vinegar, and mayonnaise, topped with egg yolks, whites, beets, and optional green pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the onion as if it were grated.

  2. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into small cubes.

  3. Optionally, mix the chopped green pepper with the onion.

Dress the potatoes

  1. Mix the potatoes and onion with the oil, ensuring each piece glistens.

  2. Add vinegar one tablespoon at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a salad bowl, shaping it into a firm mound.

  4. Cover the mound with mayonnaise dressing.

Decorate and serve

  1. Divide the mound into six sections using capers, olives, or chopped lettuce.

  2. Fill each section with cooked yolks, chopped whites, and chopped beets.

  3. Top with a tuft of lettuce hearts.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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, giving it body and a soft, starchy texture.
Oil
Coats the potato pieces, adding fat and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil and mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds richness and moisture to the surface and binds the salad together.
Eggs
Cooked yolks and whites provide richness and a mild, creamy filling for each section.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar. Add it one tablespoon at a time and mix after each addition. Vinegar absorbed unevenly leaves some potato pieces sharp and others bland, and the soft potatoes can break apart if overmixed.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, capers, egg, lettuce, 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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