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Salad

Game Salad

A salad made from cold cooked game mixed with a dressing of egg yolk, salad oil, mustard, walnut ketchup, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Game Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the remains of cold cooked game into fine pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the yolk of 1 hard-boiled egg with 1 tablespoon of salad oil until smooth.

Make and combine

  1. Stir in salt, pepper, made mustard, walnut ketchup, and vinegar.

  2. Pour the dressing over the game and mix well.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavours of the dressing.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the dressing together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Mixing the yolk and oil until smooth. Oil must be added slowly to the yolk so it emulsifies; adding it too fast makes the dressing separate and look greasy instead of creamy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, mustard, ketchup, 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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