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Salad

Salads

A mixed green salad of lettuce, celery, beets, and cabbage, dressed with mustard, oil, sugar, vinegar, and topped with sliced egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Chop the lettuce, celery, beets, and cabbage finely.

Make and combine the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, mustard, salad oil, sugar, and enough vinegar to moisten.

  2. Combine the dressing with the chopped vegetables.

Garnish

  1. Slice the egg whites into rings and arrange them on top of the salad.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides crisp, fresh texture.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, watery bite to the chopped salad.
Beets
Adds body, earthy sweetness, and color to the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a creamy, cohesive texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, coating the vegetables and carrying flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sweetness and fat.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing. Oil and vinegar separate on their own. The egg yolks and mustard help hold them together as an emulsion, so the dressing coats the vegetables evenly instead of pooling. Add vinegar gradually, only until the mixture is moist, so the dressing does not turn thin and watery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, cabbage, egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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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