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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with a dressing of eggs, vinegar, butter, cayenne, sweet cream, onion, celery, and salt.

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 ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a double boiler, heat the eggs, vinegar, cayenne, and melted butter until thickened.

  2. Once cool, stir in the sweet cream.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the potatoes in their skins, then cool, peel, and cut into squares or dice.

  2. Chop the onion and celery finely, then season with salt.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the potatoes and mix well.

  2. Serve in a flat dish garnished with lettuce leaves.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they gently set when heated, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and cream.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smooth richness to the dressing.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and mellowness, loosening the thickened dressing.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the dressing's flavour.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft potatoes.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg dressing. Eggs thicken only within a narrow temperature range. Gentle heat in a double boiler lets the proteins set smoothly, while overheating curdles them into lumps.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, potato, butter, onion, cream. 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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