Name: Dressed Celery
Ingredients: 3 raw egg yolks; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 pint sweet oil; ½ cup vinegar; juice of ½ lemon; 1 teaspoon tarragon vinegar; 1 teaspoon walnut catsup; ¼ cup thick cream (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dressed Celery

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, salt, and sugar. Beat until smooth and light.
Gradually add the sweet oil while constantly beating until thick.
If the mixture becomes too thick, add a little vinegar.
Stir in the vinegar, lemon juice, tarragon vinegar, and walnut catsup.
If using, add the thick cream just before serving to prevent bitterness.

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.

Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tarragon + walnuttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together118 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vinegar, lemon, tarragon, cream):

Pistachiofits about as well
Chestnutfits about as well
Walnutthe original
Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vinegar, lemon, tarragon, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.