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Salad

Cheese Salad

A chilled gelatin-based cheese salad with nuts, olives, and a spicy mustard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,950 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in boiling water until cool and beginning to set.

  2. Beat in the salt, whipped cream, grated cheese, chopped nuts, chopped olives, Tabasco sauce, and mustard.

  3. Mold the mixture in baking cans.

Chill and serve

  1. Refrigerate until cold and then slice.

  2. Serve as a sandwich filling.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and sliced.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, soft texture to the mixture.
Grated cheese
Provides the main cheese flavour and helps bind the filling.
Chopped nuts
Adds crunch and texture against the soft filling.
Chopped olives
Adds salty, briny flavour that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatine until cool and beginning to set. Gelatine must be fully dissolved in the hot water, then cooled until it just starts to thicken. If it is added while still very hot, it can lose setting power, and if it has set too far, it will not blend evenly into the cream and cheese, leaving lumps and a weak structure.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, cheese, olive, sauce, mustard):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cheese, olive, sauce, mustard. 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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