Name: Plain Potato Salad
Ingredients: 6 cold boiled potatoes; 1 tablespoon minced parsley; 2 stalks celery, minced; French or mayonnaise dressing; 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced; 1 head lettuce, leaves crisped

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Potato Salad

Ingredients

6 cold boiled potatoes
1 tablespoon minced parsley
2 stalks celery, minced
French or mayonnaise dressing
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
1 head lettuce, leaves crisped

Directions

Prepare and dress

Cut the cold boiled potatoes into small cubes.
Add the minced parsley and minced celery.
Mix in enough French or mayonnaise dressing to taste.

Serve

Transfer to a large platter.
Garnish with the sliced hard-boiled eggs and crisped lettuce 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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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 starchy body and a tender texture.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly vegetal crunch that contrasts the soft potato.
French or mayonnaise dressing: Coats the potatoes with fat and moisture, adding richness and binding the salad together.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add creamy richness and a soft texture as a garnish.

The step that matters

Dress the potatoes while they are still cold. Cold cubes hold their shape when mixed, so they do not break down into mush. Stirring in the dressing gently keeps the potato pieces intact and evenly coated.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, celery, egg, lettuce):

Leekfits better
Carrotfits better
Beetrootfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, celery, egg, 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.

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Plain Potato Salad