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Vegetable Salad

A salad of diced beets, carrots, celery, onion, optionally walnuts, dressed with a sweet mustard and egg-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook beets and carrots separately until tender.

  2. Dice the cooked beets and carrots.

  3. Dice celery and onion finely.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat two eggs and three-fourths cup sugar until creamed.

  2. Stir in one heaping tablespoon flour and one tablespoon mustard with water until smooth.

  3. Add one cup vinegar, one cup water, and a piece of butter the size of a walnut.

  4. Boil the mixture in a double boiler until thick.

  5. Thin the sauce with sweet cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix all vegetables together, adding walnuts if desired, and dash with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour the dressing over the vegetables.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

649Calories
17 gProtein
4 gFat
135 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Beet1/2 cup (85g)35
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the main body, colour and earthy sweetness of the salad.
Carrots
Add sweetness and a firm, tender texture to the mixed vegetables.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar in the dressing.
Vinegar (in the method)
Supplies the acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Flour
Thickens the cooked dressing so it clings to the vegetables.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savoury bite to the dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour smooth before heating. Flour must be fully blended into the liquid before heat is applied, because starch clumps when it hits hot liquid unmixed. Smooth stirring lets the starch swell evenly so the dressing thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, walnut, sugar, mustard, carrot, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, sugar, mustard, carrot, flour, pepper. 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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