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Pimento Salad

A gelatin-based salad of pimentos, celery, apples, walnuts, and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pimento Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin

  1. Dissolve gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Stir in sugar, cold water, salt, vinegar, and lemon juice.

  3. Strain the mixture and cool it until pale green.

Prepare the salad

  1. Cut celery, apples, walnuts, and pimentos into small pieces.

  2. Place ½ cup of the mixture in a jelly glass and fill with gelatine.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill on ice until firm.

  2. To serve, carefully remove the gelatine from the glass and place it on a lettuce leaf.

  3. Top with a spoonful of mayonnaise dressing.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable structure that holds the salad together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon juice.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Walnuts
Add crunch and texture against the soft gelatine.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and richness that contrasts with the sharp, tart gelatine.

The step that matters

Chill on ice until firm. Gelatine sets only when cold and needs time to form a firm network; removing it too early can cause it to collapse or stick. Keeping it cold also helps it hold its shape when unmolded.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, lemon, celery, walnut, lettuce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, lemon, celery, walnut, lettuce. 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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