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Salad

Potato Cucumber Salad

A layered salad of boiled potatoes, cucumbers, celery, eggs, and onion dressed with butter, vinegar, and sweet or sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the salad

  1. Layer the sliced potatoes, cucumbers, celery, eggs, and grated onion in a dish until all ingredients are used.

  2. Mix melted butter, vinegar, salt, and pepper for Dressing 1, then pour Dressing 1 over the salad layers.

Make the second dressing

  1. Beat the eggs for Dressing 2.

  2. Mix in melted butter, sugar, salt, and mustard until smooth.

  3. Stir in vinegar.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until smooth, stirring constantly.

  5. Once cooled, add sweet or sour cream to Dressing 2.

Serve

  1. Pour Dressing 2 over the salad before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 layers and absorb the dressing's flavor.
Eggs
Add richness and body, and set into the cooked dressing to thicken it.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to both dressings.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Sweet or sour cream
Adds creaminess and tang to the cooled second dressing.

The step that matters

Cook Dressing 2 in a double boiler. Eggs thicken gently with indirect heat and constant stirring. Too much heat or too little stirring can scramble them, leaving the dressing lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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