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Potato Salad

A chilled salad of boiled potatoes, onion, vinegar, browned butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the cold boiled potatoes and onion very finely.

  2. Pour warm vinegar and browned butter over the mixture.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Mix everything together thoroughly.

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Forms the bulk of the salad and absorbs some of the dressing.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that mellows as the salad sits.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the butter.
Browned butter
Adds nutty, rich flavor and fat that coats the potato pieces.

The step that matters

Mix everything together thoroughly. Thorough mixing spreads the vinegar, fat and seasoning evenly through the potatoes and onion, so every bite tastes balanced rather than some pieces being sharp or bland.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, butter, 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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