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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with olive oil, malt vinegar, mayonnaise, capers, and garnished with eggs, olives, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. While hot, skin the potatoes and cut them into medium-sized pieces.

Make the dressing and assemble

  1. In a saucepan, combine olive oil, malt vinegar, and cold water; boil for 5 to 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes.

  3. Add salt, celery salt, capers, and mayonnaise; mix well.

  4. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs, olives, and parsley.

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. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 hot vinegar dressing as they are dressed while warm.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Malt vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.
Mayonnaise
Adds creamy fat and body that binds the salad together.
Capers
Contribute a briny, sharp flavour that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes while they are still hot. Warm potatoes are porous and absorb the vinegar and oil dressing far better than cold ones, so the flavour penetrates the pieces instead of sitting on the surface.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, olive, malt, vinegar, capers, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, olive, malt, vinegar, capers, egg. 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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