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Salad

Hot Potato Salad

A salad of sliced hot boiled potatoes mixed with bacon, onion, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Hot Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Shred the bacon and cook in a hot frying pan until crisp.

  2. Remove the bacon and sauté the chopped onion in the bacon fat until golden brown.

  3. Measure the fat, then add half the amount of vinegar, salt if needed, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Add half the amount of hot chicken stock or water and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Remove the skins from the hot boiled potatoes and slice them into the hot mixture to absorb the liquid.

  2. Add the bacon shreds and toss everything lightly until well mixed.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 body of the salad and absorb the warm dressing as they are sliced in.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat and crisp pieces that flavour the whole salad.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the fat.
Chicken stock
Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the dressing, which the potatoes soak up.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth when browned in the bacon fat.

The step that matters

Slice the potatoes into the hot dressing. Potatoes must be hot so they absorb the warm liquid evenly. Cold potatoes stay dry and firm, leaving the dressing pooled rather than soaked into the slices.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, vinegar, pepper, chicken):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

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