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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onions, and eggs dressed with oil, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes in their skins until done.

  2. Peel and slice the potatoes finely.

  3. Finely chop the onion.

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with the salad oil.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and vinegar to the yolk mixture.

  3. Chop the egg whites finely and mix them into the sauce.

Combine

  1. Pour the sauce over the potatoes and 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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's flavor and moisture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks form a creamy base while chopped whites add soft texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, blending smoothly with the yolks into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and a pungent bite to the salad.

The step that matters

Rub the yolks smooth with the oil. Egg yolk lecithin helps hold oil and yolk together as a smooth, stable base. If the yolks stay lumpy, the dressing will not coat the potatoes evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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