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Salad

German Celery Salad

A salad of boiled celery, onion, pepper, and bacon in a vinegar and sugar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

German Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Peel and slice celery roots into ½ inch pieces.

  2. Boil in salted water until tender, then drain.

  3. Add chopped onion and pepper to the celery.

Make the dressing

  1. Dice the bacon and fry until light brown.

  2. Add vinegar, water, and sugar to the bacon, then pour the hot mixture over the celery.

Rest and serve

  1. Let stand for about 1 hour before serving.

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

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  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

Celery roots
Form the bulk of the salad and hold their shape while absorbing the dressing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory, smoky flavor to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the bacon fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onion
Contributes a sharp, aromatic bite to the salad.

The step that matters

Pour the hot bacon mixture over the celery while the celery is still warm.. Warm vegetables absorb liquid more readily than cold ones, so the hot dressing soaks into the celery root and flavors it evenly. Cooling the celery first would leave the dressing mostly on the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, vinegar, sugar. 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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