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German Potato Salad

A hot potato salad made with boiled potatoes, bacon, onion, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

German Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the small potatoes with jackets on the day before. Do not overcook.

  2. The next day, peel and slice the potatoes rather thin.

Make the dressing

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy, then add the sliced onion. Do not let it brown.

  2. Add the vinegar to the bacon and onion mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Gently mix in about 1 quart of the sliced potatoes, along with a little salt and pepper.

  2. Ensure the potatoes are well coated with the fat and look shiny.

  3. If not sour enough, add more vinegar.

  4. Serve hot with frankfurter sausage or redhots.

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 fat and vinegar flavour as they are tossed.
Bacon fat
Carries flavour and coats the potato slices, giving them a glossy, moist texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the bacon fat.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when softened in the bacon fat.

The step that matters

Do not let the onion brown. Browning turns the onion bitter and harsh and changes the clean, mild flavour the dressing needs. Keeping heat gentle lets the onion soften and sweeten in the fat.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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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