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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with cucumber, almonds, peppers, onion, and a dressing of mayonnaise or boiled dressing, vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes with skins on until tender.

  2. Peel and cut the potatoes into small cubes.

Combine and dress

  1. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, cucumber, almonds, peppers, and onion.

  2. Mix with mayonnaise salad dressing or boiled dressing.

  3. For a variation, slice warm potatoes and add chopped onion and sliced apple.

  4. Make a dressing with vinegar, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and olive oil.

  5. When the potatoes are cool, add the dressing and mix thoroughly.

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. Almond + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 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 give it a soft, starchy body.
Mayonnaise salad dressing or boiled dressing
Adds moisture and creamy richness that binds the salad together.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, carrying flavour across the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Add the dressing when the potatoes are cool. Warm potatoes absorb dressing unevenly and can turn mushy or greasy when mixed, while cooled potatoes hold their shape and take up the dressing more evenly.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cucumber, pepper, onion, vinegar, olive):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cucumber, pepper, onion, vinegar, olive. 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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