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Veal Salad

A salad of finely chopped veal, cabbage, and celery dressed with a boiled vinegar, mustard, and egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Veal Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Chop the veal, cabbage, and celery very fine and mix well.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, heat the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the mustard and sugar, then add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

  2. Garnish with the chopped whites of the eggs.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Cold boiled veal
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides the main savory meat flavor.
Cabbage
Adds crisp texture and body to the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, mildly savory flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg yolks thicken and enrich the dressing, while the whites garnish the dish.

The step that matters

Bring the dressing to a boil. Egg yolks are added to the warm vinegar mixture and must be heated gently to thicken without scrambling. Boiling too hard can curdle the dressing, so remove it from heat as soon as it reaches a boil.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, pepper, mustard, vinegar, egg, sugar. 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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