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Potato Salad

A potato salad with an egg yolk and vinegar dressing, seasoned with mustard, cayenne, lemon, and optional celery root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil potatoes until tender, then cool before slicing.

Make the dressing

  1. Heat vinegar in a small pot until it boils.

  2. Beat egg yolks, then pour hot vinegar over them, stirring until smooth.

  3. Return mixture to pot, cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thick.

  4. Remove from heat, stir in butter.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Add lemon juice and minced onion to the dry mixture, mixing well.

  7. Combine the dry mixture with the egg-vinegar mixture, stirring until smooth.

  8. Add cream, stir until the dressing thickens.

  9. Fold in beaten egg whites.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour dressing over sliced potatoes, gently toss with a fork.

  2. Garnish with parsley; add chopped celery root 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the salad, holding the dressing as they cool and slice.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and emulsify it into a smooth, rich base.
Egg whites
Add lightness and airy texture when folded into the finished dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a silkier mouthfeel to the cooked dressing.
Cream
Loosens and enriches the dressing, adding fat and a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps set the cooked egg yolks.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks can scramble if heated too fast. Cooking over low heat while stirring constantly lets them thicken smoothly into a custard-like base for the dressing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Mangofits about as well

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