Skip to main content
Main

Celery Salad

A salad of celery tossed with a creamy dressing of egg yolk, olive oil, milk, vinegar, mustard, and salt.

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 ↓

Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash the celery in cold water and drain on a clean cloth.

  2. Split the stalks lengthwise into four or five pieces and cut them into ½-inch lengths.

Make the dressing

  1. In a small skillet, heat the vinegar, mustard, and salt until warm but not boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and olive oil together, then stir in the milk.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the warm vinegar mixture, stirring until thickened like cream without boiling.

  4. Let the dressing cool, then mix it with the celery.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with the yellow leaves of the celery.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and emulsify it into a creamy, cohesive sauce.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, helping the dressing feel smooth and coat the celery.
Whole milk
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Yellow stalks of celery
Provides the crisp, fresh main body of the salad.

The step that matters

Combining the egg mixture with the warm vinegar mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle if they get too hot. Stirring steadily while combining and avoiding boiling keeps the dressing smooth and creamy rather than grainy or scrambled.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, milk, cider, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, milk, cider, 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.

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