Skip to main content
Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled white potatoes mixed with mustard, vinegar, butter, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the white potatoes until tender, then let them cool.

  2. Peel and slice the cooled potatoes thinly.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, vinegar, butter, and whipped egg yolks.

  2. Add the seasoning to the sliced potatoes just before serving.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, providing starchy body and a tender texture when boiled.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and mustard to give the dressing a creamy, smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the dressing taste smooth and full.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes cool before slicing and dressing. Warm potatoes soak up dressing unevenly and can break a emulsified egg-yolk dressing, so letting them cool first helps the slices hold their shape and keeps the dressing stable.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, vinegar, butter, 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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

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