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Salad

Chiffonade Salad

A salad of shredded green peppers, celery, tomatoes, grapefruit, romaine, dressed with French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chiffonade Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the green peppers for 2 minutes, then cool, remove seeds, and shred finely using scissors.

  2. Peel the tomatoes and cut them into quarters.

  3. Clean the celery and cut it into ¼ inch pieces.

  4. Remove the peel and skin from the grapefruit, leaving it in sections.

  5. Wash the romaine and arrange it in a salad bowl.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the peppers and tomatoes in sections, alternating them.

  2. Place the celery in the center and cover with sections of grapefruit.

  3. Pour French dressing over the salad and serve.

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Celery + grapefruittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Pepper + grapefruittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers
Boiling softens them so they can be shredded finely and arranged neatly.
Tomatoes
Juicy flesh adds moisture and a mild acidity to the salad.
Celery
Crisp texture gives the salad crunch and body.
Grapefruit
Sections add sharp acidity and a fresh, bright aroma.
Romaine
Crisp leaves form the base and give the salad structure.

The step that matters

Boiling the green peppers. Two minutes of boiling softens the peppers enough to shred without tearing, then cooling stops the cooking so they stay crisp-tender rather than limp.

Swap the grapefruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, celery, tomato):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Grapefruitthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, celery, tomato. 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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