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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, cucumber, onion, celery, mixed with a mustard and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil and peel the potatoes, then chop them along with the cucumber, onion, and celery.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then stir in the sugar, flour, salt, and mustard.

  2. Add the vinegar.

  3. Stir over steam until the mixture thickens.

  4. Stir in the butter until melted just before removing from heat.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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 dressing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set over gentle steam heat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the thickened dressing.
Flour
Helps stabilise the dressing so it thickens without curdling.

The step that matters

Stirring over steam until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, but too much heat can scramble them into lumps. Gentle steam heat and constant stirring let the dressing thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, celery, egg, sugar, flour, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, celery, egg, sugar, flour, mustard. 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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