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Irish Potato Salad

A salad of mashed potatoes with butter, eggs, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Irish Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato base

  1. Boil the potatoes until very soft, then peel and mash them while hot.

  2. Season the mashed potatoes with salt, pepper, and spice. Add the butter and mix well.

Add the egg and serve

  1. Boil the eggs, then dissolve the yolks in the vinegar.

  2. Pour the yolk mixture over the potatoes and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

  3. Slice the egg whites into circles and place them on top of the potatoes.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Potato + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, when mashed hot, give a soft, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the mashed potato and carrying flavour.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and body; cooked whites add mild texture on top.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolks and potatoes.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes while hot. Starch in hot potatoes mashes smoothly and absorbs fat evenly. Once cooled, the starch sets firmer and the mash can turn gluey or stiff.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg, 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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