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Salad

Turkey Salad

A cold salad of finely minced turkey, eggs, ham, celery, apples, pickles, dressed with butter or oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Turkey Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with 1 tablespoon of water until smooth.

  2. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, and mustard to taste.

  3. Mix in 2 teaspoons of celery seed and 1 cup of melted butter or olive oil.

  4. Pour in vinegar to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mince the turkey very fine.

  2. Combine the minced turkey, chopped celery, minced ham, chopped apples, and chopped pickles.

  3. Pour the dressing over the mixture just before serving.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the main body and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy body and richness to the dressing when mashed smooth.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter or oil to give the dressing a smooth, thick texture.
Butter or olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and smoothing the dressing.
Apples
Contribute crisp texture and a mild sweetness that balances the savoury dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts through the fat.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the mixture just before serving.. Apples and celery release moisture and can soften or discolour once dressed, and an emulsified dressing can thin or separate if left standing. Dressing at the last moment keeps the salad crisp and the dressing creamy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, egg, pepper, mustard, butter, vinegar, ham. 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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