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Unique Potato Salad

A potato salad with butter, eggs, mustard, vinegar, and optional onion, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Unique Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and eggs

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets until done.

  2. Peel and cut the potatoes into squares.

  3. While the potatoes are still hot, pat them with butter or poultry drippings.

  4. Add the hard‑boiled eggs, cut into squares.

  5. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the potatoes and eggs.

  6. Add onion if desired.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the vinegar until hot.

  2. Add the mustard to the hot vinegar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks lightly.

  4. Gradually add the hot vinegar mixture to the yolks.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the potatoes and eggs.

  2. Serve in a salad bowl and garnish with chopped parsley.

  3. Serve cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 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
Form the salad's bulk and absorb the dressing while still hot.
Butter or poultry drippings
Coat the hot potatoes with fat, adding richness and flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy texture and body to the salad.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the salad its tangy flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the vinegar mixture into a creamy dressing when gently heated.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot vinegar mixture to the beaten yolks. Adding hot liquid too fast can scramble the egg yolks, leaving lumps instead of a smooth, thickened dressing. Pouring slowly while whisking gently warms the yolks so they thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, 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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