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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of cold boiled potatoes mixed with a dressing of vinegar, cream, mustard, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Cut cold boiled potatoes into small pieces.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, finely chopped onion, and chopped parsley.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, cream, mustard, egg, pepper, and flour.

  2. Heat the mixture until it thickens, then let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, add salt and pour the dressing over the potatoes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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

Egg
Its proteins set when heated, thickening the dressing into a creamy coating.
Flour
Starch swells when heated, helping the dressing thicken and stay smooth.
Cream
Fat adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Acidity brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the cream and egg.
Cold boiled potatoes
Starchy base that soaks up the dressing and forms the body of the salad.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing until it thickens. Egg proteins and flour starch must be heated enough to thicken the dressing, but overheating can scramble the egg and make it grainy. Letting it cool before adding it to the potatoes keeps it smooth and prevents the potatoes from going soft.

Swap the onion

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

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

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