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Salad

Potato Cucumber Salad

A salad of thinly sliced boiled potatoes, cucumbers, celery, eggs, and onion, dressed with a mustard‑vinegar‑butter‑egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the salad

  1. In a dish, layer the sliced potatoes, cucumbers, celery, eggs, and a sprinkle of grated onion until all ingredients are used.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, beat the eggs well and mix in melted butter, sugar, salt, and mustard until smooth.

  2. Add vinegar and cook in a double boiler, stirring until smooth.

  3. Once cooled, fold in the beaten cream.

Serve

  1. Before serving, pour the dressing over the salad.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar and richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished dressing.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, providing starchy body that soaks up the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing in a double boiler. Eggs can scramble if heated too quickly. Gentle indirect heat, with constant stirring, lets the egg proteins thicken the vinegar mixture smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, egg, onion, butter, sugar, mustard. 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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