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Salad

Vegetable Salad

A chilled salad of chopped vegetables set in lemon gelatin, served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the lemon Jello by dissolving it in ¾ pint of water and letting it cool.

  2. Finely chop the Spanish red peppers, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, and cucumber.

Set the salad

  1. Add the chopped vegetables and peas to the cooled Jello mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into molds and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 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

Lemon jello
Gelatin sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable salad.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture that holds up within the gelatin.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and mild acidity to the set salad.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and moisture.

The step that matters

Let the Jello cool before adding the vegetables. Gelatin added while still hot can cause vegetables to wilt or release water, and it sets unevenly. Cooling it first helps the vegetables stay crisp and the salad hold its shape once chilled.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cabbage, celery, tomato, cucumber, lemon, lettuce):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cabbage, celery, tomato, cucumber, lemon, lettuce. 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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