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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onion, and a hot buttered milk and egg mixture, seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

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

Prepare

  1. Boil and peel the potatoes, then chop them into small bits.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped potatoes and onion.

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the milk and butter together until boiling.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes and onions, mixing thoroughly.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

  2. Serve cold or warm, optionally frying with bacon drippings.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the hot dressing for body.
Egg
Beaten into the hot milk mixture, it thickens the dressing and binds it to the potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and softens the dressing.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the dressing, providing moisture and mild sweetness.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and flavour that mellows during mixing with the hot dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten egg into the hot milk mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, so the egg must be stirred in off the heat or while the mixture is hot but not boiling, and mixed quickly. This keeps the dressing smooth and thickened rather than scrambled into curds.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, 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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