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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onions, parsley, dressed with a mustard‑vinegar‑egg‑oil‑milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 potatoes with the skins on, then peel and cut them lengthwise into quarters and slice them.

  2. Place the sliced potatoes in a salad dish, add the sliced onions and chopped parsley, and mix well.

Make the dressing

  1. In a small skillet, heat the vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper until hot but not boiling.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and olive oil together, then stir in the milk and mix into the hot vinegar mixture until thickened like cream, without boiling.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set gently in the warm vinegar mixture, giving it a creamy body.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, absorbing the dressing while holding their shape when sliced.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Olive oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.
White onions
Add sharp aroma and a bite that cuts through the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Thickening the dressing without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins gently set with heat. If the mixture boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing instead of a smooth, creamy one.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, 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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