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Salad

Celery Dressed As Slaw

A crisp celery salad dressed with a mustard vinaigrette and egg yolks.

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 Dressed As Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the celery in cold water to keep it crisp.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the egg yolks and mix with vinegar, sweet oil, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Drain the celery and pour the dressing over it.

  2. Stir well and serve.

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.
Egg yolks
Mashed into the dressing to give it body and a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rich.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Soak the celery in cold water. Cold water soaking firms the cell walls of the celery, keeping it crisp so it does not turn limp once the dressing is added.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, 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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