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Salad

Ambrosial Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes, celery, nasturtium seeds, truffles, eggs, parsley, lettuce hearts, French dressing, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ambrosial Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak shredded celery in water with lemon juice, then dry thoroughly.

  2. Cut the best truffles into thin strips and the rest into small slices.

  3. Cut the egg whites into 12 equal strips and strain the yolks.

  4. Rub a salad dish with cut onion.

Dress and assemble

  1. Mix potatoes, celery, nasturtium seeds, truffles, and parsley with French dressing and add yolks carefully.

  2. Arrange the salad in a mound, placing a lettuce heart on top.

  3. Radiate egg slices and truffle strips from the lettuce heart.

  4. Place remaining truffle pieces around the base between the lettuce rosettes.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide bulk and a soft, tender texture to the salad.
Celery
Adds a crisp, crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft potatoes.
Truffles
Contribute a rich, earthy aroma that defines the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy richness and structure through the yolks and whites.
French dressing
Supplies fat and acidity that moisten and season the salad.

The step that matters

Drying the shredded celery thoroughly. Water left on the celery dilutes the French dressing and makes the salad watery, so the dressing will not cling well and the dish loses its texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, truffle, egg, parsley, lettuce):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, truffle, egg, parsley, 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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