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Salad

Salad of Fresh Fruit

A chilled salad of diced peaches, tart plums, orange, banana, and crisp celery, served with a cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,810 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salad of Fresh Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and celery

  1. Peel and dice peaches, tart plums, orange, and banana to fill a cup.

  2. Dice crisp celery to fill a cupful.

  3. Keep both fruit and celery ice cold.

  4. At serving time, mix fruit and celery and cover with cream dressing.

  5. Garnish with celery tops.

Make the jelly

  1. Soak half a box of gelatine in half a cup of cold water for an hour.

  2. Remove seeds from a small green pepper, peel and slice.

  3. Slice two large or three small fresh cucumbers.

  4. Slice a small white onion.

  5. Combine ingredients in a saucepan, add a bay leaf and parsley, cover with boiling water, and cook until tender.

  6. Remove the parsley and bay leaf, add a saltspoonful of sugar and salt to taste, and press through a fine sieve.

  7. Expect about two and a half cups of liquid after straining.

  8. Pour liquid over soaked gelatine; if not hot enough to dissolve, heat briefly; strain again; set aside to cool.

  9. When cold and beginning to congeal, stir and pour into a round mold; set on ice until ready.

Serve

  1. Turn jelly out onto a plate, arrange lettuce leaves around, and put a spoonful of mayonnaise or cream dressing into each leaf.

  2. Color jelly green using spinach extract if desired.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Celery + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,794 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + parsleytop 39% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together3,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine (in the method)
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Cucumbers (in the method)
Add fresh, mild flavour and moisture to the jelly.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy fat element to the dressing for the leaves.
Celery
Provides crisp texture that contrasts with the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Pour liquid over soaked gelatine; if not hot enough to dissolve, heat briefly. Gelatine only sets properly once fully dissolved. Undissolved granules leave gritty specks and weak patches, so the liquid must be warm enough to melt them before straining and cooling.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  3. Cardamomabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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