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Salad

Potato Salad

A potato salad with bacon, onions, cider vinegar, and optional olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 their skins on.

  2. Peel while hot and cut into slices ⅛ inch thick.

  3. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the potatoes.

  4. Add chopped onions.

Make the dressing

  1. Fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp and golden brown.

  2. Add cider vinegar to the bacon and pour over the potato mixture.

Mix and serve

  1. Mix gently with a salad fork to avoid breaking the potatoes.

  2. Serve warm or cold, with Frankfurt sausages arranged around the salad.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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, holding their shape when sliced and gently mixed.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory browned flavor, which is carried into the dressing.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the bacon fat.
Onions
Add sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows as the salad sits.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness to the dressing and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Peel while hot and cut into slices. Warm potatoes absorb the vinegar and seasoning more readily than cold ones. Cutting them gently keeps the slices intact, so they hold their shape during mixing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, cider, 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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