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Salad

French Potato Salad

A salad of cold boiled potatoes, parsley, onion, and a mustard vinaigrette.

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

French Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cold boiled potatoes into a salad bowl.

  2. Sprinkle parsley over the potatoes.

  3. Finely chop the onion and add it to the bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix mustard, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Whisk in olive oil until the sauce is creamy.

Combine and serve

  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. 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and hold the dressing in their starchy surface.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, and emulsifies with the mustard to make the sauce creamy.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps oil and vinegar stay combined in the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and a bite that contrasts with the mild potatoes.

The step that matters

Dress the potatoes while still warm or cold as the record states. Potatoes are the main ingredient that absorbs dressing, and the sauce must be well mixed so it coats evenly rather than pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, mustard, 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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