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Salad

Cheese Salad

A salad of grated stale cheese mixed with oil, egg yolk, mustard, sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Grate the cheese finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine salad oil and egg yolk; mix with a wooden spoon.

  3. Add salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar; mix well.

  4. Gradually add vinegar to the mixture.

Serve

  1. Arrange lettuce leaves on small plates as a border.

  2. Place a small heap of the cheese mixture in the center of each plate.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, helping the dressing hold together smoothly.
Stale cheese
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the salad.
Salad oil
Adds richness and carries flavor, helping the mixture stay smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Gradually add vinegar to the mixture.. Adding vinegar slowly lets the egg yolk and oil emulsify. Pouring it in all at once can break the mixture, leaving it greasy and separated.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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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