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Salad

Molded Salad

A chilled salad made with pimentos, cream cheese, pecans, French dressing, and served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and cream cheese work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Molded Salad

three slices per portion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the molds

  1. Thoroughly drain and dry the canned pimentos.

  2. Line timbale molds with the pimentos.

Make and chill the filling

  1. Work the cream cheese until smooth.

  2. Add broken pecans and moisten with French dressing.

  3. Pack the mixture solidly into the molds.

  4. Chill thoroughly, then remove from molds.

Slice and serve

  1. Cut into ⅓‑inch slices crosswise.

  2. Arrange on crisp lettuce leaves, allowing three slices per portion.

  3. Serve with salad dressing No. 4.

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. Pecans + cream cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Pecans + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Forms the creamy base that holds the salad together and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft cheese.
French dressing
Moistens the mixture, adding tang and sweetness and keeping the cheese from stiffening.
Canned pimentos
Add mild sweet flavour and colour, and line the molds so the shape shows on the slices.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the pimentos. Surplus moisture from wet pimentos can make the cream cheese soft and watery, so the slices may not hold their shape when chilled and unmolded.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Welsh onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pecans, cream cheese. 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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