Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 6 potatoes; 1 small white onion, chopped; ½ cup vinegar; pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ cup hot water; ½ cup melted butter; lettuce leaves for garnish; 2 hard boiled eggs, sliced

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

Boil the potatoes with skin on until cooked, then peel and slice them.
Chop the onion finely and sprinkle it over the potatoes.

Dress and serve

Mix the vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt with the hot water, then pour this mixture over the potatoes.
Pour the melted butter over all the ingredients.
Set aside to cool.
Garnish the salad bowl with lettuce leaves and top with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 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 body of the salad and absorb the dressing as they cool.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the butter.
Melted butter: Adds fat and richness that coats the potatoes and carries flavor.
Hard boiled eggs: Add extra body and mild richness to the finished salad.

Swap the lettuce

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

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, vinegar, pepper, butter, 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.