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Salad

Celery Salad

A salad of celery tossed with a dressing of oil, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 dressing

  1. Prepare the dressing by mixing the salad oil, white sugar, salt, pepper, vinegar, and mustard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the celery into pieces half an inch long.

  2. Combine the celery with the dressing and mix well.

  3. Serve immediately to maintain the crispness 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Salad oil
Adds fat and smooth body to the dressing, carrying flavour across the celery.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar.
White sugar
Adds mild sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps the oil and vinegar blend into the dressing.
Celery
Provides the crisp, fresh-textured base of the salad.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Celery loses its crispness once it sits in an acidic dressing, because vinegar slowly softens the cell walls. Dressing and serving right away keeps the texture firm.

Swap the celery

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

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

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

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