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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, thinly sliced onions, and a dressing of butter, cream, vinegar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Pare and boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes well and stir with a fork to keep them light.

  3. Slice the onion very thin and distribute the slices throughout the potatoes.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the melted butter, cream, salt, white pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs to the dressing and mix thoroughly.

Combine and serve

  1. Let the mixture cool, then pour it over the potatoes, removing the onions if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 absorb the dressing, giving it body.
Eggs
Bind the dressing and thicken it as it cools, adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, smoothing its flavor.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the tang of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and flavor, mellowed as it is spread through the warm potatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the dressing. Eggs thicken when heated, so they must be mixed in smoothly and the dressing kept from overheating. Adding them to a hot dressing too quickly can scramble them, leaving lumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, butter, cream, vinegar, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, butter, cream, vinegar, 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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