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Salad

Tongue Salad

A chilled salad of ham, tongue, celery or cucumber, olives, lemon juice, stock, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tongue Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the ham and tongue before preparation.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the ham, tongue, celery or cucumber, olives, salt, white pepper, lemon juice, and stock, and mix well to combine all ingredients.

  2. Line a serving bowl with lettuce or parsley.

  3. Spoon the mixture into the lined bowl and top with mayonnaise dressing.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Provides the main meaty body and texture of the salad.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and firmness alongside the tongue.
Celery or cucumber
Adds crisp, cool crunch that contrasts with the soft meats.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, coating the ingredients with richness.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, celery, olive, lemon, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, olive, lemon, lettuce. 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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