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
Prepare
Slice the cold boiled potatoes, onion, and hard boiled eggs.
Season with salt and pepper, then mix together.
Make the dressing
In a saucepan, combine vinegar, mustard, butter, and cream.
Heat until boiling.
Assemble and serve
Pour the dressing over the potato mixture and stir gently.
Garnish with additional slices of hard boiled eggs.
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.
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Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,340 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 and absorb the dressing's moisture and flavour.
- Hard boiled eggs
- Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
- Vinegar
- Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and fat of the dressing.
- Butter
- Adds fat and a rounded richness to the dressing.
- Cream
- Adds smoothness and body to the dressing.
The step that matters
Heating the dressing until boiling. Boiling a dressing containing cream and butter can cause it to separate or curdle, and heating vinegar and mustard together can make the flavour sharp. Heating just to boiling and then pouring it over the warm-to-cool potatoes, while stirring gently, helps the dressing coat the slices evenly without breaking the potatoes apart.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, egg, vinegar, butter, cream, pepper):
- Chivefits better
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
- Spinachfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, egg, vinegar, butter, cream, pepper. 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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