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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled Irish potatoes mixed with a dressing of egg yolks, oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the Irish potatoes until very dry.

  2. Let the potatoes cool completely.

  3. Slice the cooled potatoes.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and parsley to make the dressing.

  2. Pour the dressing over the sliced potatoes and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 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; boiling them until dry helps them hold the dressing.
Egg yolks
Their lecithin helps emulsify the oil and vinegar into a creamy dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes cool completely before dressing. Warm potatoes can soften and absorb the dressing unevenly, and warmth can break the emulsion of yolks and oil, leaving a greasy, separated coating.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper, parsley. 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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