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Potato Salad, No. 1

A potato salad made with boiled potatoes, onion, celery, parsley, seasoned with pepper, salt, vinegar, and fat or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the potatoes until tender, then cool and remove the skins.

  2. Slice the potatoes and chop the onion, celery, and parsley.

Combine and dress

  1. Mix the chopped ingredients with the potatoes and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Heat vinegar and mix it with the potatoes, adding the fat or olive oil.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes and mix lightly until glazed.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 as they warm.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the fat.
Goose or duck fat or olive oil
Adds richness and moisture, coating the potatoes and carrying flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes and mix lightly. Warm dressing soaks into warm potato slices, so they take on flavour and a glossy coating. Mixing gently keeps the slices from breaking up into mush.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, parsley, pepper, vinegar, olive):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, parsley, pepper, vinegar, olive. 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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