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Potato Salad

A salad of mashed potatoes, cabbage, pickles, and eggs dressed with a vinegar and butter mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 722 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Run the mashed potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Mix the potatoes, cabbage, pickles, and egg yolks together with a little vinegar.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the raw egg until light.

  2. Add celery seed, sugar, melted butter, flour mixed with a little cold vinegar, salt, and pepper to the beaten egg.

  3. Boil the vinegar, then add the egg mixture and cook, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix lightly with a fork.

  5. Chill before serving.

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. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 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

Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and give it a soft, starchy body.
Raw egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it into a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and creaminess to the salad base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the dressing.
Flour
Helps stabilize the dressing so it thickens evenly without curdling.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture. The raw egg must be cooked gently while stirring constantly. Heat thickens the egg proteins into a smooth custard-like dressing; if it is overheated or left still, the egg can scramble and turn grainy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cabbage, cucumber, egg, sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cabbage, cucumber, egg, sugar, butter, flour. 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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