Skip to main content
Main

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes dressed with a mixture of egg yolks, mustard, French dressing, and other seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. In a bowl, combine the diced potatoes with salt and pepper.

  2. Layer the potatoes in a fancy dish, then sprinkle the sieved egg yolk and chopped parsley on top.

Make the cooked dressing

  1. In a double boiler, mix the beaten egg yolks, mustard, salt, cayenne, sugar, melted butter or olive oil, cream or milk, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Cook the mixture in the double boiler until slightly thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the hot vinegar.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, pour the dressing over the potato salad.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 flavour as it sits.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, smooth body.
Egg whites
Add airy volume and lightness to the cooked dressing mixture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Butter or olive oil
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing until slightly thickened. Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing. Overheating can scramble the eggs and leave lumps, so cook gently and stir constantly in the double boiler.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pepper, egg, parsley, sugar, butter, cream):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, egg, parsley, sugar, butter, cream. 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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes