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Salad

Celery Slaw

A salad of celery tossed with a dressing of egg yolks, vinegar, oil or butter, mustard, salt, and pepper.

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 Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the celery into 1-inch pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

Make the dressing

  1. Add vinegar, salad oil or butter, mustard, salt, and pepper to the yolks. Mix well to create the dressing.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the celery and toss to combine.

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 bulk of the slaw.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the dressing to give it a rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat from the yolks.
Salad oil or butter
Adds fat that smooths the dressing and carries flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Mix the dressing well. Mashed yolks, vinegar and fat only form a smooth, cohesive dressing when thoroughly blended. Under-mixing leaves lumps of yolk and pooled oil, so the dressing will not coat the celery evenly.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, butter, 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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