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Potato Salad

A chilled potato salad with almonds or walnuts, onion, custard dressing, and cucumber and pickles garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare

  1. Slice the boiled potatoes very thin.

  2. Slice or grate the onion finely.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sugar, and salt.

  2. Stir in hot water until the mixture thickens to a custard-like consistency, then add rich cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a serving dish, layer the potatoes, a sprinkle of onion, dressing, and walnuts until full.

  2. Garnish with cucumber, pickles, and walnuts.

  3. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

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 + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set with heat, giving it a custard-like body.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, absorbing dressing while keeping their sliced structure.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft potatoes.

The step that matters

Stir in hot water until the dressing thickens. Beaten eggs thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. Adding the water too fast or leaving it too hot can scramble the eggs, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard-like dressing.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sugar. 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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