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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of sliced boiled potatoes mixed with a dressing of yolks, raw eggs, vinegar, flour, oil, mustard, butter, salt, pepper, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs to a pulp.

  2. Add the raw eggs, vinegar, flour, oil, salt, pepper, mustard, and melted butter.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

Assemble the salad

  1. Slice the cold boiled potatoes thin and pour the mixture over them.

  2. Add a little celery for extra flavor, if desired.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw eggs
Bind the dressing and help it thicken and set as it cooks.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into a rich, creamy base that gives the dressing body.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it coats the potatoes instead of running off.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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