Skip to main content
Main

Potato Salad

A salad of mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage, cucumber pickle, egg yolks, and a dressing of egg, celery seed, sugar, butter, flour, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Rub the mashed potatoes through a colander.

  2. Mix the potatoes with chopped cabbage, cucumber pickle, and egg yolks.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten raw egg, celery seed, sugar, melted butter, and seasonings.

  2. Boil the vinegar and pour it over the egg mixture, stirring well.

  3. Wet the flour with cold vinegar and mix it in.

  4. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring until it thickens.

  5. Pour the hot dressing over the salad and toss with a fork.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the salad thoroughly 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, tender body.
Raw egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it to the salad.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the dressing emulsify smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the cooked dressing so it clings to the potatoes.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the egg and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing over low heat. Egg proteins thicken gently at low heat, but high heat can curdle the raw egg. Stirring constantly keeps the dressing smooth while the flour starch thickens it.

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.

More potato salad recipes

German 31Hot 19Dressing 17Anchovy 15French 10American 9 See all 504 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesRed CabbageRed Cabbage65 recipes