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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes and eggs dressed with a vinaigrette of vinegar, butter, olive oil, onion, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine vinegar, egg yolks, butter, and salt.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove, then slowly add olive oil to prevent curdling.

  3. Squeeze the onion over the dressing to extract juice, then add the crushed onion to the dressing.

  4. Chill the dressing in the refrigerator.

Assemble and serve

  1. When ready to serve, strain the dressing to remove onion pieces.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chopped eggs and potatoes, then serve.

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 + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and butter into the dressing, giving it a smooth, thick body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Olive oil
Adds fat that thickens the emulsified dressing and carries flavor.
Boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and soak up some of the dressing.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a mild, creamy richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly to the heated mixture. Egg yolks can curdle if heated too fast or if oil is added too quickly. Adding oil slowly while the mixture is warm lets the yolks emulsify it into a smooth, stable dressing instead of a broken, grainy one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, vinegar, butter, 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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