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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onion, celery, and a sweet milk dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 potatoes and vegetables

  1. Boil the potatoes with their skins on until tender.

  2. Let the potatoes cool, then slice them thinly.

  3. Chop the onion and celery finely.

  4. In a bowl, mix the potatoes, onion, and celery.

Make the dressing

  1. Make a dressing by beating the egg into the sweet milk and cooking until it thickens.

  2. Add sugar, butter, salt, and pepper to the dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Moisten the potato mixture with vinegar and thick cream, then mix gently.

  2. Heap the salad in a mound and garnish with bits of pickled beetroot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and hold their shape when sliced and mixed.
Egg
Thickens the sweet milk into a custard-like dressing that binds the salad.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of the dressing, which the egg thickens when cooked.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture to the potato mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they heat, but if the mixture is overheated or cooked too fast the egg can curdle or scramble. Cook gently and stir constantly until it coats a spoon, so the dressing stays smooth and binds the salad.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, milk, egg, sugar, butter, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, milk, egg, sugar, butter, 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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