Skip to main content
Main

Veal Salad

A salad of tender veal, celery, boiled eggs, and a creamy dressing of eggs, sugar, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Veal Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal and vegetables

  1. Cook the veal until tender, then let it cool and cut into small pieces.

  2. Chop the celery and boiled eggs, and combine them with the veal.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, whisk together the eggs or yolks, sugar, vinegar, and mustard.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens to the consistency of cream, then let it cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the veal salad and mix well before serving.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

  5. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 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

Veal
Provides the main protein and meaty bulk of the salad.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy body.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the tender meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing over low heat. Eggs thicken when gently heated but can scramble if the heat is too high. Low heat and steady stirring keep the dressing smooth and creamy rather than curdled.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, sugar, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes