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Salad

Veal Salad

A salad of cooked veal, celery or cabbage, hard‑boiled eggs, butter, mustard, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped veal and chopped celery or cabbage.

  2. Chop the egg whites and add them to the bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mash the egg yolks with butter until smooth.

  2. Stir in mustard, sugar, and enough vinegar to achieve a thick molasses-like consistency.

Combine

  1. Pour the dressing over the veal mixture and mix well.

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 + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cabbage + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the salad as the bulk protein.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg yolks mashed with butter make a rich, creamy dressing that binds the salad.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed yolks, smoothing the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that cuts through the richness of the egg and butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and thins the dressing to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar gradually. Adding vinegar a little at a time lets you reach a thick, molasses-like consistency. Too much at once thins the dressing, and it may not coat the veal and celery evenly.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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