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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes with celery, onion, and a dressing of water, vinegar, butter, eggs, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Cut the boiled potatoes into dice shape.

  2. Chop the celery and onion.

Make and dress the salad

  1. In a bowl, mix water, vinegar, butter, beaten eggs, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the dressing 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. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + walnuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 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 bulk of the salad and soak up the dressing.
Eggs
Enrich the dressing and help it thicken and bind.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savory flavor to the dressing.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, onion, vinegar, butter, egg, sugar. 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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