Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 4 potatoes; ½ small onion, finely chopped; 2 small bunches celery, finely chopped; whites of 2 hard-boiled eggs; oil to taste; mustard to taste; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; vinegar to taste

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil, peel, and slice the potatoes.
Finely chop the onion and celery.
Chop the whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, mix the potatoes, onion, celery, and egg whites.
Add oil, mustard, pepper, salt, and vinegar to taste.
Toss to combine and 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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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 provide its main starchy body.
Egg whites: Add soft, mild texture and body to the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft potatoes.
Onion: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salad.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

Horseradishfits better
Lettucefits better
Broccolifits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, egg, mustard, 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.