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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, onion, celery, and eggs mixed with a mustard, pepper, salt, and vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then let them cool.

  2. Peel and slice the cooled potatoes.

Assemble the salad

  1. Add the finely chopped onion and chopped celery to the potatoes.

  2. Chop the whites of the boiled eggs and mix them in.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the yolks with mustard, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  4. Pour the yolk mixture over the salad and combine well.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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 give it a soft, starchy body.
Eggs
Add richness and body; the yolks form a creamy dressing base.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the creamy yolks.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, slightly savoury crunch.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes cool before slicing and dressing. Warm potatoes absorb dressing unevenly and can turn mushy when handled. Cooling them firms the starch so the slices hold their shape and take the yolk mixture well.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, egg, mustard, pepper, 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.

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