Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 1 small onion, finely chopped; 12 cold potatoes, thinly sliced; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 3 tablespoons vinegar; 1 tablespoon prepared mustard; 2 tablespoons salad oil; Optional: chopped celery

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

Finely chop the onion.
Thinly slice the cold potatoes.

Make the salad

Season the potatoes with pepper, coarse sea salt, vinegar, prepared mustard, and salad oil in a bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Add chopped celery if desired.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + celerytop 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, providing body and a starchy base for the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil and mustard.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the oil into the dressing.
Salad oil: Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour across the potatoes.
Onion: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that softens as the salad sits.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, potato, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

Garlicfits better
Dillfits about as well
Tarragonfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, potato, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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.