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Salad

German Potato Salad

A warm potato salad with boiled potatoes, egg, butter, vinegar, onion, and seasonings, garnished with parsley and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

German Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  3. Drain and peel the potatoes while still hot.

  4. Season the hot potatoes with salt, pepper, and celery salt mixed with the sliced onion.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg until stiff, then mix in the melted butter.

  2. Gradually add the vinegar sweetened with sugar to the egg mixture.

  3. Pour the dressing over the hot potatoes and toss lightly.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a salad bowl and garnish with parsley and sliced hard-boiled eggs.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 while hot.
Egg
Beaten until stiff, it adds body and richness to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the butter and sugar.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour to the seasoned potatoes.
Sugar
Sweetens the vinegar to balance its sharpness.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the hot potatoes and toss lightly. Warm potatoes absorb the dressing far better than cold ones, so the flavour penetrates. Tossing lightly avoids breaking the potatoes into a mush.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, vinegar, butter, pepper, celery, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, vinegar, butter, pepper, celery, parsley. 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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