Name: Potato Salad with Cream Dressing
Ingredients: 2 quarts cold boiled potatoes, cut fine; 1 small onion, chopped very fine; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon white pepper; ¼ teaspoon mustard; ½ cup cream; ⅓ cup vinegar

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 with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a large bowl, combine the cold boiled potatoes and chopped onion.
In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, salt, white pepper, and mustard thoroughly.

Dress and serve

Add the cream and vinegar to the mixture and stir well.
Pour the dressing over the potatoes and onion, stirring to combine.
Let the salad stand for a while before serving for better flavor.

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).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 while absorbing the dressing.
Cream: Adds richness and body to the dressing, coating the potatoes smoothly.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Onion: Contributes sharp, aromatic flavor to the salad.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, sugar, mustard, cream, vinegar):

Garlicfits better
Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, sugar, mustard, cream, vinegar. 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.