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Bon Air or Spaghetti Salad

A cold pasta salad with spaghetti, boiled potato, eggs, celery, cheese, tomatoes, and dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Bon Air or Spaghetti Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spaghetti

  1. Boil spaghetti in salted water until soft.

  2. Transfer to a bowl of ice water to cool and bleach.

  3. Once cold, dry spaghetti on a soft towel.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, mix spaghetti with potato, eggs, celery, cheese, onion juice, pimento, and tomatoes.

  2. Season with salt, white pepper, and paprika.

  3. Add a generous amount of salad dressing and let stand for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves, garnished with a slice of tomato and half a stuffed olive.

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 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

Spaghetti
Provides the bulk and chewy texture that holds the other ingredients together.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture and richness, and as it stands it softens the pasta and blends the flavors.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture that contrasts with the pasta.
Sharp cheese
Adds savory, tangy flavor and a sharper taste that stands out in the salad.
White potato
Adds starchy body and a soft texture that helps bind the salad.

The step that matters

Drying the spaghetti after cooling. Excess water left on cooked pasta dilutes the dressing and makes the salad watery and loose, so the spaghetti should be well dried before mixing.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, celery, cheese, onion, tomato, lettuce):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, celery, cheese, onion, tomato, 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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