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Salad

Potato Salad

Cold potato salad with onion, sweet peppers, salt, cayenne, dressed in White Cream Dressing No. 1, garnished with eggs and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the sliced potatoes, chopped onion, and chopped sweet peppers.

  2. Season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

  3. Mix in the White Cream Dressing No. 1 until well combined.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with sliced eggs and arrange parsley sprigs around the border.

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 + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the dressing's flavor and moisture.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the dressing.
Sweet peppers
Add crisp texture and mild sweetness to the salad.
White cream dressing no. 1
Binds the vegetables together and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Mix in the dressing until well combined. Potatoes are fragile and can break apart or turn mushy if overworked. Folding gently coats the pieces evenly without crushing them, keeping the salad's texture intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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