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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with vinegar, onion, olive oil, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender but not too soft.

  2. Cool slightly, then peel and slice the potatoes.

Dress and serve

  1. Add pepper, salt, vinegar, hot water, and finely chopped onion.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Add olive oil and mix well.

  4. Serve with cold meats.

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. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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 absorb the dressing as they cool and stand.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel that carries flavour through the salad.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that mellows somewhat during standing.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes. Sliced potatoes soak up the vinegar, hot water and seasoning while they stand, so the flavour is absorbed into the potato rather than sitting on the surface. Skipping this rest leaves the salad tasting flat and raw-edged.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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