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German Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, bacon or ham fat, vinegar, onion, parsley, eggs, pepper, salt, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

German Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes, then peel while hot and slice them into ⅛ inch thick pieces into a deep bowl.

  2. Add ½ cup hot bacon or ham fat and ⅓ cup hot vinegar to the potatoes, mixing carefully.

  3. Cover with a plate and let the mixture cool.

Finish and serve

  1. One hour before serving, mix in the thinly shaved onion, chopped parsley, and chopped hard-cooked eggs.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste, and serve on a bed of lettuce.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the salad, holding their shape when sliced while hot.
Bacon or ham fat
Adds richness and fat that coats the potato slices and carries flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the salad its sharp, tangy flavour.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and pungent bite to the salad.
Hard-cooked eggs
Add soft texture and mild richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Dressing the potatoes while hot. Warm potato slices absorb the hot fat and vinegar far better than cold ones, so the flavour soaks in evenly. Mixing gently keeps the slices intact rather than breaking them into mush.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, ham, vinegar, parsley, egg, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, ham, vinegar, parsley, egg, pepper, 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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