Skip to main content
Salad

Potato Salad and Salad Dressing

A potato salad with a fish-based dressing made from boiled fish, butter, cream, mustard, vinegar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad and Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into fancy shapes, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Mix the potatoes with flakes of cold boiled fish.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine melted butter or salad oil, cream or milk, salt, pepper, and ground mustard.

  2. Add vinegar and boil the mixture well.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs for five minutes until well combined.

  4. Let the dressing cool completely before pouring it over the salad.

Serve

  1. Garnish with slices of pickled cucumbers, beetroot, hard boiled eggs, and fresh 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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Forms the bulk of the salad and holds its shape when cut into pieces.
Fish
Adds flaky texture and the main savory flavor to the salad.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set gently in the warm mixture, helping it cling to the salad.
Butter or salad oil
Adds fat that makes the dressing rich and smooth on the palate.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten eggs in off the heat. Egg proteins thicken the dressing only when heated gently. If the mixture is still hot and boiling, the eggs can scramble into lumps, so removing it from heat first keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, fish, butter, cream, pepper, coffee, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes