Name: Potato Salad
Ingredients: 8 cold boiled potatoes; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Sweet oil; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 2 tablespoons vinegar; ½ onion, finely chopped; Lettuce (for garnish)

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

Peel and dice the cold boiled potatoes.

Assemble and serve

In a dish, layer the potatoes, sprinkling each layer with salt, black pepper, sweet oil, melted butter, vinegar, and chopped onion.
If desired, rub the onion over the dish instead of adding it to the layers.
Garnish with lettuce and serve.

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).
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).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 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 dressing flavours as they sit.
Melted butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the fat.
Sweet oil: Carries flavour and keeps the potatoes moist.
Onion: Adds sharp aroma and pungency; rubbing it over the dish makes the flavour milder.

Swap the lettuce

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

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Mustardfits better
Lettucethe original

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