Skip to main content
Salad

Celery Salad

A salad of blanched celery tossed with an egg-based vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Cut blanched celery stalks into short pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix oil, sugar, salt, pepper, vinegar, and mustard in a bowl.

  2. Heat vinegar until scalding, then slowly pour over the beaten egg while whisking.

  3. Add the oil mixture to the egg mixture, whisking until combined.

  4. Let the dressing cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the celery salad.

  2. Toss the salad with a fork and serve in a glass bowl.

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. Celery + peppertop 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

Celery
Forms the crisp, crunchy body of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Beaten egg
Thickens the dressing as it gently cooks in the hot vinegar, giving it body.
Oil
Provides fat and smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavor through the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps bind the oil and vinegar together.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot vinegar into the egg. The vinegar must go in slowly while whisking. Adding hot liquid too fast can scramble the egg, while gradual tempering lets the egg proteins thicken the dressing smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

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

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

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes