Skip to main content
Main

Potato Salad

A potato salad with a creamy sauce made from egg yolk, flour, and spices, served over cooked spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolk with flour, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add boiling water and cook over steam, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in cider vinegar, cream or milk, oil or melted butter, and onion juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the sauce with the mashed potatoes and beat well.

  2. Heap the potato mixture on a mound of cooked spinach.

  3. Pour the remaining sauce over the salad. Serve hot or cold.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 yolk
Emulsifies the sauce and thickens it as it cooks, giving a smooth, rich body.
All-purpose flour
Stabilizes the sauce with starch so it thickens without curdling during cooking.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce's tang.
Oil or melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth texture and mouthfeel in the dressing.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the bulk of the salad, adding body and a soft, starchy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce over steam while stirring constantly. The egg yolk and flour must be heated gently while stirred. Egg proteins set and thicken the sauce, but if it overheats or stops moving, the yolk can scramble into lumps.

“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 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes