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Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes mixed with mustard, olive oil, vinegar, anchovy sauce, onion, and egg yolks, garnished with parsley and sliced egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then cut them into small pieces and pass them through a sieve.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine mustard, coarse sea salt, olive oil, vinegar, egg yolks, chopped onion, and anchovy sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the dressing well with the potatoes.

  2. Garnish with parsley and sliced hard-boiled egg.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that the dressing coats and clings to.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, silky texture.
Egg yolks
Their fat and lecithin help emulsify the oil and vinegar into a creamy dressing.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together and adds a sharp, tangy flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing into the potatoes. Potatoes are still warm and absorb dressing best while warm, so the flavour penetrates. Once cooled, they absorb less and the dressing can separate or sit on the surface.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, onion, anchovy, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, onion, anchovy, sauce. 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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