Name: Plain Potato Salad
Ingredients: 6 cold boiled potatoes, cut into small cubes; 2 raw onions, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon minced parsley; French dressing or mayonnaise, to taste; 2 hardboiled eggs, sliced; 1 head of lettuce, crisp leaves

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 ↓

Plain Potato Salad

Ingredients

6 cold boiled potatoes, cut into small cubes
2 raw onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon minced parsley
French dressing or mayonnaise, to taste
2 hardboiled eggs, sliced
1 head of lettuce, crisp leaves

Directions

Combine the cubed potatoes, chopped onions, minced parsley, and enough French dressing or mayonnaise to taste in a large bowl. Transfer the mixture to a salad bowl.
Garnish with sliced hardboiled eggs and crisp lettuce leaves.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 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 hold the dressing in their soft, starchy cubes.
French dressing or mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, coating the potatoes and binding the salad together.
Raw onions: Add sharp, pungent flavor that contrasts with the mild potatoes and rich dressing.
Hardboiled eggs: Add creamy texture and mild richness as a garnish.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, parsley, egg, lettuce):

Chivefits better
Beetrootfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, egg, lettuce. 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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Plain Potato Salad