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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with a dressing of egg yolks, mustard, oil, and seasonings, topped with chopped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.

  2. Cool the boiled potatoes completely.

  3. Peel and cut the potatoes into small disks.

  4. Add the chopped celery, lettuce, or cabbage.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, mustard, salt, onion, sugar, salad oil, celery seed, and vinegar.

  2. Chop the egg whites and add them to the dressing.

  3. Combine the dressing with the potato mixture.

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

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 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 and hold their shape once cooled and cut.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a creamy, smooth dressing.
Salad oil
Adds richness and moisture to the dressing and coats the potatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsified dressing.

The step that matters

Cool the boiled potatoes completely. Warm potatoes absorb dressing unevenly and can turn mushy or greasy, and warm dressing can thin or break. Cooling firms the cut potato so it keeps its shape and takes dressing evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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 →

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