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Salad

Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, cabbage, onions, and eggs dressed with a vinegar‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then let them cool.

  2. Peel and chop the cooled potatoes finely.

  3. Chop the cabbage, onions, and hard boiled eggs.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, egg yolk, mustard, sugar, and celery seed; boil until thick.

  2. Let the dressing cool, then pour it over the salad ingredients.

Serve

  1. Slice the remaining hard boiled eggs on top 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 + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

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

  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 bulk and starchy body of the salad.
Egg yolk
Thickens the dressing and gives it a rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing to balance the vinegar's sharpness.
Hard boiled eggs
Add texture and richness through the salad and as a topping.

The step that matters

Boiling the dressing until thick. The egg yolk must be heated enough to thicken the mixture, but if it is overheated it can scramble or curdle. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly while it thickens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cabbage, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, 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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