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Potato Salad

A layered potato and egg salad with a vinegar-based dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the layers

  1. Layer the boiled potatoes and chopped eggs in a serving dish, salting each layer.

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, salt, flour, mustard, and sugar with a little cold vinegar.

  3. Add a small amount of the hot vinegar to the mixture, stir well, then pour it into the saucepan with the remaining hot vinegar.

  4. Stir gently until the dressing begins to thicken, then remove from heat.

  5. Add a sprinkling of celery seed and transfer to an earthenware or glass dish, covering it.

  6. Thin the dressing with milk or whipped cream as desired before serving.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Potato + mustardtop 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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the vinegar dressing as they cook gently, giving it body and richness.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Flour
Stabilises the dressing so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with gentle sweetness.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, absorbing the dressing and providing texture.

The step that matters

Stir gently until the dressing begins to thicken. Egg yolks set when heated, so overheating or stirring too hard can scramble them and make the dressing grainy. Remove from heat as soon as it thickens.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, vinegar, flour, mustard, sugar, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, vinegar, flour, mustard, sugar, milk. 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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