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Salad

Pear and Celery Salad

A chilled salad of pears and celery with a gelatinized lemon-sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery 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 ↓

Pear and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Juice the lemons.

  2. Combine the lemon juice with sugar and pear syrup in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the gelatin and stir until dissolved.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble the salad

  1. Drain the pears and place them in a flat dish filled with chopped celery.

  2. Pour the cooled pear syrup over the pears and celery.

  3. Optionally, add cheese if desired.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pear + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the syrup into a jelly that holds the pears and celery together.
Pears
Provide the sweet fruit base of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp, fresh texture against the soft pears.
Lemons
Add acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the lemon juice and pear syrup mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin fully before cooling. Gelatin must dissolve completely in the hot liquid to set evenly. Undissolved granules can leave the jelly grainy or set unevenly, so stir until no granules remain before removing from heat.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, gelatin, sugar, 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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