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Hot Potato Salad

A warm potato salad with bacon, onions, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Hot Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil and slice the potatoes while warm.

  2. Season the potatoes with pepper, coarse sea salt, and onions.

Make the dressing

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy.

  2. Pour in the vinegar and bring to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the seasoned potatoes.

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 hot vinegar dressing as their starch softens.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor, and its rendered drippings carry flavor into the dish.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the bacon.
Onions
Add sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows somewhat in the warm dressing.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the seasoned potatoes. The dressing must be hot while the potatoes are still warm so the starch in the potatoes can absorb the vinegar and flavor. If the potatoes cool first, the dressing sits on the surface and the salad tastes flat.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, 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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