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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled diced potatoes mixed with a vinegar-based dressing and optional celery and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine cider vinegar, coarse sea salt, and granulated sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until boiling.

  3. Mix flour, mustard, and butter with a little water to a smooth paste in a bowl.

  4. Stir the paste into the boiling vinegar mixture and remove from heat.

  5. Beat the egg and stir it into the mixture after removing from heat.

  6. Allow the mixture to cool.

  7. Thin the dressing with cream or milk as desired.

Assemble the salad

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then let them cool and cut into dice.

  2. Add diced potatoes, celery, and onion to the dressing. Season with white pepper.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the dressing into a smooth, creamy coating as it cooks.
Egg
Adds richness and body to the dressing as it thickens with the vinegar mixture.
Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Granulated sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and soak up the dressing's flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the hot mixture. Egg proteins can scramble if the mixture is too hot or the egg is added too quickly. Removing the pan from heat first and stirring steadily keeps the dressing smooth and thickened.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, flour, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, flour, butter, egg, cream. 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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