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Salad

Celery Salad

A salad of sliced celery dressed with a creamy vinaigrette made from egg yolks, olive oil, milk, vinegar, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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.

  3. Place the celery pieces in a salad dish.

Make the dressing

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

  2. 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 it thickens to the consistency of cream without boiling.

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

Garnish

  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 add richness as they set gently with the warm vinegar.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the dressing a rounder body.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Rich sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the dressing to a creamy consistency.
Yellow stalks of celery
Provides the crisp, fresh-tasting base of the salad that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Combine the egg mixture with the warm vinegar mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle if they get too hot. Keeping the mixture warm rather than boiling lets it thicken smoothly into a cream-like dressing.

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.

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