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Salad

Celery Salad

A salad of celery with a dressing of boiled egg yolks, oil, mustard, sugar, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the boiled eggs smooth.

  2. Add the oil, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper to the yolks.

  3. Mix in the vinegar last.

Prepare the celery

  1. Cut the celery into half-inch pieces and set aside in a cool place.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, sprinkle a little salt and black pepper over the salad.

  2. Pour the dressing over the celery.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Egg yolks help the oil and vinegar blend into a smooth, thick dressing.
Oil or butter
Fat adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Acidity gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Sweetness balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Mustard adds sharpness and helps keep the dressing emulsified.
Celery
Celery is the base of the salad, providing crisp texture and fresh flavour.

The step that matters

Dress the celery just before serving. Salt and vinegar draw water out of celery through osmosis, so it softens and loses crunch if dressed too early. Adding the dressing and seasoning close to serving time keeps the pieces crisp.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, mustard, pepper, 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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