Skip to main content
Salad

Ginger Ale Salad

A chilled salad made with gelatin, celery, apple, pineapple, ginger ale, and preserved ginger, served with mayonnaise and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Ale Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in boiling water.

  3. Add ginger ale, lemon juice, sugar, and salt to the gelatin mixture.

  4. Let it stand until it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Fold in the chopped celery, apple, pineapple, and preserved ginger.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  3. Chill thoroughly.

  4. Garnish with parsley and serve with cream mayonnaise.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable salad that holds its shape when unmolded.
Ginger ale
Adds liquid and light ginger flavour and sweetness to the gelatin base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that stays firm within the set gelatin.
Preserved ginger
Adds concentrated spicy-sweet ginger flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Let it stand until it begins to thicken. Gelatin must be partly set before the celery, apple and pineapple are folded in. If it is too liquid, the pieces sink and settle unevenly; if it is fully set, they will not blend in evenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, apple, pineapple, ginger, sugar, lemon, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, apple, pineapple, ginger, sugar, lemon, cream. 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.

You might also like

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