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Potato Salad

A salad of hot potatoes mixed with butter, mustard, egg, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the lightly beaten egg and mix well.

Combine

  1. Fold in the sifted hot potatoes.

  2. Add vinegar or lemon juice to taste and mix gently.

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Make up the bulk of the salad and provide its main texture.
Egg
Enriches the mixture and helps bind it into a smooth, cohesive base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp, savoury flavour that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Fold in the hot potatoes gently. Folding rather than stirring keeps the potato pieces intact. Vigorous mixing breaks down the starch in warm potatoes, turning them gluey and pasty instead of tender and distinct.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, mustard, pepper, vinegar. 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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