Skip to main content
Salad

American Potato Salad

A salad of sliced boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, celery, onion, and a dressing of egg yolk, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

American Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the cold boiled potatoes.

  2. Boil the eggs hard.

  3. Wash and chop the celery finely.

  4. Peel and chop the onion finely.

Make and serve

  1. In a bowl, break the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and mix with the raw egg yolk.

  2. Stir in the oil, vinegar, salt, dry mustard, and pepper.

  3. Mix the dressing with the potatoes, celery, and onion.

  4. Serve the salad.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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's flavour as they are mixed in.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar so the dressing becomes thick and creamy.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the dressing through their cooked yolks.
Oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Mixing the raw egg yolk into the dressing. The raw yolk must be thoroughly combined with the yolks and oil so it emulsifies properly; if the oil is added too fast or not blended well, the dressing can separate and turn greasy rather than creamy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, celery, onion, vinegar, mustard, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes