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German Potato Salad

A salad of hot boiled potatoes dressed with a vinegar and ham drippings mixture, seasoned with pepper, salt, onion, and garnished with eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine hot ham drippings, vinegar, and sugar in a skillet.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Dress and serve

  1. Slice the hot boiled potatoes into a salad bowl.

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

  3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the potatoes and mix well.

  4. Garnish with hard boiled eggs and add young dandelions if desired.

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 + dandeliontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

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

  5. Onion + dandeliontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, absorbing the warm dressing as they are sliced.
Ham drippings
Add fat and savoury flavour to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that defines the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Onion
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite that complements the potatoes.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the potatoes while both are hot. Hot dressing soaks into the warm, freshly cut potato slices, so they absorb flavour evenly. Cold potatoes or dressing stay bland and can taste greasy, since fat and acid do not penetrate starch well when cool.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, sugar, potato, pepper, egg, dandelion. 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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