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Potato Salad

A salad made with mashed potatoes, cabbage, apples, onion, mustard, pepper, butter, eggs, vinegar, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, chopped cabbage, scraped apples, and chopped onion.

  2. Mix in the mustard and pepper, then stir in the melted butter until well combined.

  3. Mash the yolks of the eggs with some butter and mix them into the salad.

  4. Chop the egg whites and fold them into the salad, reserving some to spread on top.

  5. Add vinegar, coarse sea salt, and sugar to taste, mixing well.

Finish and serve

  1. Spread the reserved chopped egg whites on top before serving.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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 + 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and give it a soft, creamy body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the dressing and give richness; chopped whites add texture and bulk.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the salad.
Apples
Add subtle sweetness and a crisp, fresh contrast to the soft potatoes.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the butter and yolks.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly sweet vegetable bite.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cabbage, onion, mustard, pepper, butter, 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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