Skip to main content
Salad

Waldorf Potato Salad

A potato salad with cucumber, onions, pecan nuts, mayonnaise, whipped cream, lettuce cups, and halved pimolas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Waldorf Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Scrub the potatoes and boil until tender.

  2. Drain and cool, then peel and cut into thin slices, then quarters. You should have about 1 pint of potatoes.

Prepare the vegetables and nuts

  1. Dice the cucumber.

  2. Cut the onions into paper-thin slices.

  3. Cut the pecan nuts into strips.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the mayonnaise with the whipped cream and stir it through the ingredients.

  2. Fill lettuce cups with the mixture.

  3. Garnish each plate with halved pimolas and a spoonful of mayonnaise.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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 give it a soft, tender body.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture that bind the salad and carry its flavour.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a lighter, creamier texture to the dressing.
Pecan nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, buttery note that contrasts the soft potatoes.
Cucumber
Adds cool moisture and a crisp texture.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, onion, cream, lettuce):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, onion, cream, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes