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Potato Salad

A cold salad of boiled potatoes, onions, parsley, dressed with a mustard‑vinegar‑egg yolk mixture.

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 skins on.

  2. Peel the boiled potatoes.

  3. Cut the peeled potatoes lengthwise into quarters.

  4. Slice the quartered potatoes.

Assemble the salad

  1. Place the sliced potatoes in a salad dish.

  2. Add the sliced onions and parsley. Mix well.

Make the dressing and serve

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks and olive oil together. Stir in the milk.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the hot vinegar mixture until thickened like cream, but do not boil.

  4. Pour the dressing over the salad. 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the dressing's flavour and moisture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and thicken the dressing as it gently heats, giving it a creamy body.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the egg and oil dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat that helps emulsify the dressing and gives it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion in the dressing.

The step that matters

Combining the egg mixture with the hot vinegar mixture. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the dressing boils the proteins curdle and it turns grainy. Keep heat gentle and stop once it looks like thick cream.

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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