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Salad

Celery Dressed As Slaw

A salad of celery dressed with a mustard vinaigrette of vinegar, sweet oil, and egg yolks.

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 Dressed As Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the celery into pieces about ¼ inch long.

  2. Keep the celery in cold water to make it crisp until 15 minutes before serving.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the egg yolks and mix in the vinegar, sweet oil, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Drain the celery and pour the dressing over it before serving.

  2. Pour the dressing over the celery and stir well.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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
Provides the crisp, fresh-textured bulk of the slaw.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and vinegar to form a thick, creamy dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Sweet oil
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the dressing body and mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion of the dressing.

The step that matters

Keep the celery in cold water until serving. Cold water keeps celery cells firm and turgid, so the pieces stay crisp. Holding them until just before serving, then draining well, prevents a limp, watery slaw once the dressing is added.

Swap the celery

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

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

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