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Potato Salad

A salad of sliced potatoes, onions, and hard‑boiled eggs dressed with vinegar, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes and onion.

  2. Chop 2 hard boiled eggs.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  4. Slice 4 hard boiled eggs.

  5. Place sliced eggs on top.

  6. Garnish with celery or parsley.

Dress and rest

  1. Heat vinegar, butter, and sugar until boiling.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes.

  3. Cover the dish.

  4. Let it sit in a warm place for 1-2 hours before serving.

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

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

  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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the hot vinegar dressing as they rest.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the dressing's sharpness.
Hard boiled eggs
Add firm texture and richness to the salad.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the potatoes. Pouring the dressing while it is hot lets the warm potatoes absorb it evenly. Cold dressing would coat only the surface, so the flavour would stay uneven.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, egg, pepper, vinegar, butter, sugar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, egg, pepper, vinegar, butter, sugar. 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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