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Salad

German Salad

A German potato salad made with boiled potatoes, onions, bacon, vinegar, salt, pepper, and garnished with green salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until they are soft enough to stick a fork in, then drain and let cool for 15 minutes.

  2. Slice the onion very finely.

  3. Cut the bacon into small dice and fry until crisp and brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Peel the cooled potatoes and slice them thinly, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix in the sliced onion, add the fried bacon and the fat from the pan, then stir in the vinegar.

  3. Garnish with green 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. 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. Onion + peppertop 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 body of the salad and absorb the dressing as they cool and soften.
Smoked bacon
Adds savory, smoky flavor and fat that carries into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the fat from the bacon.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows slightly when mixed with the warm potatoes.

The step that matters

Slice the potatoes while they are still warm and dress them promptly. Potato starch absorbs dressing best while the slices are still slightly warm. Once cold and firm, the slices take up less seasoning and vinegar, so the salad can taste flat. Peeling and slicing after cooling is what the record states, so keep the slices thin and handle them gently to avoid breaking them.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, 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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