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Salad

Potato and Cucumber Salad

A salad of cubed potatoes and sliced cucumbers dressed with a thickened egg yolk, butter, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato and Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat together the egg yolks, salt, red pepper, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the melted butter and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Cook the mixture on the stove until it thickens.

  4. Stir in the whipped cream before serving.

Assemble the salad

  1. Combine the cubed potatoes and sliced cucumbers.

  2. Add the dressing to the potatoes and cucumbers just 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  4. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the dressing smooth and silky.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Whipped cream
Lightens the cooked dressing and adds a soft, airy texture.
Potatoes
Form the starchy base of the salad that holds the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, thickening the dressing. Overheating can scramble them into lumps, while undercooking leaves it thin and runny.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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