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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, onion, parsley, dressed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes, onion, and parsley in a bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix salt, pepper, and olive oil thoroughly, then add vinegar.

  3. Stir well and pour the dressing over the potatoes and onion.

Dress and serve

  1. Toss everything with a fork until well mixed.

  2. Let the salad stand for 1 hour and serve very cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 and absorb the dressing's flavour as they sit.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the dressing and coating the potatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows somewhat during standing.

The step that matters

Dressing the potatoes while they are still cold enough to hold their shape. Cold, firm potatoes keep their form when tossed. Dressing too roughly or too early can break them into mush, so toss gently with a fork until just coated.

Swap the onion

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

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

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