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Veal Salad and Dressing

A salad of chopped veal and cabbage dressed with a vinaigrette of vinegar, butter, sugar, egg yolks, oil or cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 16,012 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Salad and Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until hot.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat and stir in oil or cream, salt, and pepper to taste.

Assemble the salad

  1. Season the veal with celery salt.

  2. Chop the veal and mix it with an equal amount of chopped cabbage.

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

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture is too hot or stirred too little, they can scramble and turn lumpy. Constant stirring keeps the yolks evenly heated so the dressing becomes smooth and thick.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

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

  1. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

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