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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, eggs, onions, celery, and a vinegar-mustard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then cool and chop them.

  2. Chop the hard boiled eggs, onions, and celery.

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, water, mustard, and butter in a saucepan and boil the mixture together.

  2. Let the dressing cool, then stir in the sweet cream.

Combine and season

  1. Combine the potatoes, eggs, onions, celery, and dressing in a large bowl.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar to taste, then mix well.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 hold their shape while absorbing some of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness and richness.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Let the dressing cool before adding the cream. Cream added to a hot, acidic mixture can curdle or split, leaving the dressing grainy. Cooling it first keeps the cream smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, celery, pepper, sugar, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, celery, pepper, sugar, vinegar, mustard. 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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