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Vegetable Salad

A salad of French peas, tomatoes, celery, nuts, and a vinaigrette made with eggs, vinegar, mustard, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the French peas, chopped tomatoes, chopped celery, and chopped nuts.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, beat the eggs until smooth.

  2. Add vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter, black pepper, and salt to the beaten eggs.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat until thick, stirring constantly.

  4. Let the thickened dressing cool.

  5. Thin the dressing with a little cold vinegar.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad 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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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. Peas + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sugar and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dressing and softens its flavor.
French peas
Form the bulk of the salad, adding mild sweetness and texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch that contrasts with the soft peas and dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so low heat with constant stirring thickens the dressing smoothly. Higher heat or neglect can scramble the eggs into lumps.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, tomato, celery, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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