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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, onion, apple, vinegar, olive oil, parsley, served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the sliced potatoes, chopped onion, and chopped apple.

  2. Add salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, and chopped parsley.

  3. Mix the ingredients well and chill until cold.

Serve

  1. Serve on a bed of fresh, crisp lettuce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Parsley + lettucetop 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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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 vinegar and oil dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavors and balances the oil.
Apple
Adds crisp texture and a mild sweetness against the savory potatoes.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows as the salad chills.

The step that matters

Mix the ingredients well and chill until cold. Mixing while the potatoes are still warm lets them absorb the vinegar and oil evenly. Chilling firms the salad and lets the flavors meld before serving.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

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