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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, celery, capers, onion, and parsley, dressed with an egg‑oil vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, slice them, and season with salt.

  2. While the potatoes are hot, add the sliced hard-boiled eggs, chopped celery, capers, sliced onion, and parsley.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs in a deep bowl for the dressing.

  2. Gradually add the olive oil drop by drop until thick.

  3. Mix in the sugar, salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Add the vinegar to the egg-oil mixture.

  5. Place the bowl in a pan of boiling water and cook until thick, stirring frequently to prevent lumps.

  6. Once cool, beat the dressing again 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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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, absorbing the seasoning and dressing as they cool.
Eggs
Act as an emulsifier and thicken the dressing as they cook.
Olive oil
Adds richness and body, emulsified into the eggs to make a thick dressing.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add soft, creamy texture and richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing over boiling water. Gentle heat thickens the egg proteins into a smooth custard-like dressing. Too much heat or stopping to stir can scramble the eggs or leave lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, celery, capers, parsley, olive, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, celery, capers, parsley, olive, sugar. 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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