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Potato Salad

A potato salad made with hard-boiled egg yolk, raw egg yolk, flour or cornmeal, vinegar, sweet oil, butter, mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, and sliced potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Boil one egg until very hard, then remove the shell and mash the yolk into a pulp.

  2. In a bowl, combine the mashed yolk, raw egg yolk, flour or cornmeal, vinegar, sweet oil, butter, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Beat the mixture until creamy.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the cold sliced potatoes and mix well.

  2. If desired, add the finely chopped raw onion for extra flavor.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Hard-boiled egg yolk
Gives the dressing a rich, smooth body and a creamy base.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and butter so the dressing stays creamy and cohesive.
Flour or cornmeal
Thickens the dressing so it clings to the potatoes instead of running off.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts its richness.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, silky texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Beating the dressing until creamy. Beating the egg yolk with the oil and butter forms an emulsion. If it is rushed or the fats are added too fast, the dressing can separate and look greasy rather than creamy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, potato. 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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