Skip to main content
Salad

Potato Salad. — Mrs. E. J. Matteson

A salad of boiled potatoes, eggs, celery, onion, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. — Mrs. E. J. Matteson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil enough potatoes with skins on.

  2. Boil 2 or 3 eggs based on desired quantity.

  3. Chop celery and onion finely, and chop part of the eggs, reserving some for garnish.

  4. Remove skins from potatoes and slice them thin.

Assemble and dress

  1. Add chopped celery, onion, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. Add a little vinegar and plenty of sweet cream.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 bulk of the salad, holding their shape when sliced thin.
Eggs
Add body and richness, with chopped whites and yolks blending into the dressing.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, coating the potatoes and eggs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and balances the flavour.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and bite that mellows during resting.

The step that matters

Add a little vinegar and plenty of sweet cream. Potatoes absorb dressing as they cool, so seasoning and dressing added while the potatoes are still warm will soak in more evenly. Add the vinegar sparingly, since too much acid makes the salad sharp and can thin the cream.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, celery, pepper, vinegar, cream. 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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes