Skip to main content
Main

Celery Salad

A salad of celery and orange with a creamy dressing made from vinegar, butter, eggs, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Boil vinegar and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Beat eggs with mustard, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  3. Slowly pour hot vinegar mixture into egg mixture while beating.

  4. Return to double boiler and cook until creamy.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix dressing with chopped celery and oranges, then add whipped cream.

  2. Chill dressing for an hour before serving over fruit.

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together452 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing into a creamy, smooth emulsion when gently cooked.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and gives it a softer, airier texture.

The step that matters

Return to double boiler and cook until creamy. Egg proteins thicken gently over indirect heat. If the heat is too high, the eggs scramble and the dressing turns grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, orange, vinegar, butter, egg, mustard, 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.

More celery salad recipes

Apple 14Chicken 11Walnut 11Stuffed 6Pineapple 4Tomato 4 See all 80 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes