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Salad

Potato and Cucumber Salad

A salad of sliced cold boiled potatoes, cucumbers, celery and hard-boiled eggs, dressed with melted butter, vinegar and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Layer thinly sliced cold boiled potatoes, cucumbers, celery, and hard-boiled eggs in a salad bowl.

  2. Reserve one egg for garnish.

Dress and chill

  1. Mix melted butter, vinegar, salt, pepper, and onion juice; pour over the vegetables.

  2. Let it stand in a cold place for 1-2 hours.

  3. Pour boiled dressing over the salad and garnish with celery leaves.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  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. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 absorb the dressing's flavour.
Cucumbers
Add moisture and a cool, crisp texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, coating the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Letting the salad stand in a cold place. Standing lets the acidic dressing soak into the sliced potatoes and cucumbers so the flavours blend. Chilling keeps the butter-based dressing firm and the salad fresh.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, egg, butter, vinegar, pepper, onion. 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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