Skip to main content
Main

Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, cabbage, celery, and egg yolks with a buttery vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 vegetables

  1. Rub the boiled potatoes through a colander and let them cool.

  2. Shred the cabbage and celery finely with a sharp knife.

  3. In a bowl, toss the potatoes, cabbage, celery, and powdered egg yolks together with a silver fork.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks, melted butter, sugar, corn-starch, salt, mustard, cayenne, and vinegar.

  2. Heat the vinegar mixture and pour it over the egg yolks, sugar, butter, and seasoning, mixing well.

  3. Wet the corn-starch with water and stir it into the mixture; cook for 2 minutes while stirring constantly until thickened.

Combine and chill

  1. Whip the mixture into the potato salad and set aside until very 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  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 a soft, mealy body when mashed through a colander.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the dressing, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture when heated.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, smoothing the dressing's flavor and mouthfeel.
Corn-starch
Thickens the dressing when cooked, giving it body so it clings to the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing until thickened. Corn-starch thickens only when heated with liquid, and it must be stirred constantly so it does not lump or scorch. Stop once it is thick, because the egg yolks can curdle if overheated.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, egg, butter, sugar, corn, mustard):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, egg, butter, sugar, corn, mustard. 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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes