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German Potato Salad

A warm potato salad with bacon, vinegar, mustard, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

German Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cold boiled potatoes thinly and add the chopped onion.

Make the dressing

  1. Fry the bacon until brown.

  2. Mix the vinegar with sugar, salt, and pepper, then add to the bacon.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes and onion.

  2. Mix thoroughly until well combined.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 soak up the dressing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the salad its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes and onion. Warm potatoes absorb the vinegar and seasoning more readily than cold ones. Adding the dressing while it is still hot lets the flavour penetrate the slices instead of sitting on the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, vinegar, pepper, olive, mustard, flour. 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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