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Salad

Potato Salad and Ham

A potato salad mixed with pineapple juice, oil, and vegetables, served on slices of baked ham and garnished with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 and Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Oil the potatoes.

  2. Bake the potatoes with the skins on until tender.

  3. Let the potatoes cool.

  4. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  5. Marinate the diced potatoes in pineapple juice, oil, salt, and pepper for about 1 hour.

Make the salad

  1. Add the scraped onion, diced cucumber, shredded bell pepper, and pineapple pieces to the potatoes.

  2. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Add enough cooked dressing to moisten the mixture.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad on thin slices of baked ham and sprinkle with crumbled egg yolks.

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. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 and absorb the marinade's flavor and moisture.
Pineapple juice
Adds sweetness and acidity to the marinade that soaks into the potatoes.
Whipped cream
Folded in gently to add richness and a light, creamy texture.
Oil
Carries flavor and adds fat, giving the potatoes a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Marinate the diced potatoes. Diced potatoes soak up the marinade while still warm or cooled, so letting them rest about an hour lets the pineapple juice and seasoning penetrate evenly. Skipping the rest leaves the salad bland and watery in places.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, onion, cucumber, cream, ham, egg. 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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