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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, eggs, onions, and a creamy dressing of beaten eggs, milk, sugar, vinegar, and cold cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then let them cool and cut into small squares.

  2. Chop the hard boiled eggs and onions, then mix them with the potatoes.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and celery seed.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the beaten eggs, milk, sugar, and vinegar; bring to a boil.

  2. Let the dressing cool, then pour it over the salad and mix well.

  3. Finally, add the cold cream and mix until 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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, holding their shape once boiled and cooled.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and add richness to the salad.
Milk
Dilutes the egg mixture into a smooth, pourable dressing base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Cold cream
Adds richness and a creamy texture when stirred into the cooled salad.

The step that matters

Boil the dressing gently and let it cool before adding it to the salad. Beaten eggs can curdle or scramble if they boil too hard, leaving lumps in the dressing. Cooling the dressing before mixing keeps the potatoes from becoming soggy and keeps the cold cream from warming and loosening.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, pepper, celery, milk, sugar, vinegar. 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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