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Salad

Turkey Salad

A salad of turkey, celery, and egg yolk dressing with mustard, oil, vinegar, and egg white rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Turkey Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Combine turkey and celery in a bowl and lightly salt.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks, sugar, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and mustard into a paste.

  2. Stir in oil and vinegar until well combined.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour dressing over turkey and celery, and toss well with a fork.

  2. Garnish with egg white rings before serving.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. Meat + turkeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

White meat of turkey
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its main savory, chewy body.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Their fat and fine texture emulsify with oil and vinegar to make a creamy dressing.
Oil
Adds richness and smoothness, carrying flavor and coating the turkey and celery.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Prepared mustard
Helps bind the yolks into a paste and adds a sharp, aromatic bite.

The step that matters

Make the dressing into a smooth paste before adding oil and vinegar. Mashing the yolks thoroughly with mustard and sugar lets them emulsify the oil and vinegar. If the yolks stay lumpy or the oil is added too fast, the dressing can separate and feel greasy rather than creamy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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