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Vegetarian Cookery

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetarian Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

  1. milk, a teaspoonful of made mustard, two tablespocnfuls of vinegar, pepper, and salt. There are many people still living in remote parts of tlie country who prefer this style of dressing.

  2. Salad, English, Mixed. — The old-fashioned English mixed salad generally consisted of English lettuce cut up into strips crossways, to which was added mustard and cress, boiled beet- root, chopped celery, spring onions, radishes, and watercress. It is by no means a bad mixture when dressed with oil, and, of course, it can be dressed a TAnglaise. It makes an excellent accompaniment to a huge hunk of cheese, a crusty loaf, a good appetite, and a better digestion.

  3. Salad, Mayonnaise. — This is generally considered the king of salads, and it can be made an exceedingly pretty-looking dish. Take two or more French lettuces, clean and dry them as directed above, and take the small heart of one lettuce about the size of a small walnut, uncut from the stalk, so that you can stand it upright in the middle of the salad, raised above the surface. Arrange all the softer parts of the leaves on the top of the salad so as to make as much as possible a smooth surface. Make some Mayonnaise sauce, thick enough to be spread like butter, and mask this little mound and all the surface of the middle of the salad round it with a thin layer of the sauce, so that it looks like the top of a mould of solid custard. Orna- ment the edge of the salad with hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, and place between the quarters slices of pickled gherkins and stoned olives. Take a small teaspoonful of French capers, dry them on a cloth, and sprinkle a few of them about an inch apart on the white surface. ISfext chop up, very finely, about half a teaspoonful of parsley, and see that this doesn't stick together in lumps. Place this on the end of a knife and flip the knife so that the little green specks of parsley fall on the white surface. Next take about half a saltspoonful of finely crumbled bread, and shake these in a saucer with one or two drops of cochineal. This will colour them a bright red, and they will have all the appearance of lobster-coral. Place these red bread-crumbs on the end of a knife and let them fall over the white surface like the parsley. The little red and green specks on the white background make the dish look exceedingly

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

495Calories
15 gProtein
4 gFat
98 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Lettuce1 cup shredded (36g)5
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Capers1 tbsp (9g) drained2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1

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

By Payne, A. G. (Arthur Gay), 1840-1894. 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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lettuce + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 (mustard, capers, parsley, bread, vinegar, lettuce):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, capers, parsley, bread, vinegar, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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