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Potato Salad

A chilled potato salad with lettuce, onions, herbs, eggs, milk or cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the potatoes in their skins, then drain and peel them.

  2. Once cold, cut the potatoes into small pieces.

  3. Chop the lettuce, onions, parsley, and mint very finely.

  4. Layer the potatoes and salad, seasoning each layer with pepper and salt.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. Beat the eggs with a little milk or cream and vinegar.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

  3. Cool the mixture, then pour it over the salad and mix 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken when gently heated, binding the dressing into a creamy coating.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, absorbing the dressing while keeping their shape when cut small.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, but high heat scrambles them into lumps. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, lettuce, onion, parsley, pepper, egg, milk. 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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