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Hungarian Salad

A chilled gelatin-based salad with salt tongue, peppers, lettuce, celery, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Hungarian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the molds

  1. Line small molds with red Spanish peppers.

  2. Fill molds with blocks of cold salt tongue.

Make the aspic

  1. Soak 2 tablespoons of gelatin in ½ cup of cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour 1 pint of stock over the soaked gelatin.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and juice of ½ lemon; strain the mixture.

  4. Fill the molds with the strained mixture.

Serve

  1. Once firm, turn out the salad and garnish with lettuce and small pieces of celery.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise in a boat.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the stock into a firm aspic that holds the salad's shape when turned out.
Cold salt tongue
Provides the savoury meat filling that is set within the aspic.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the aspic, carrying flavour through the set salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds rich fat and creaminess to contrast with the firm, lean aspic.

The step that matters

Fill the molds with the strained mixture. The aspic must be cool and syrupy but not yet setting when poured, or it will not fill gaps evenly. Gelatin needs to be fully dissolved and strained so the set salad is clear and firm.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, gelatin, lemon, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, gelatin, lemon, celery. 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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