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Veal Salad

A salad of tender veal, celery, nuts, pickles, apple, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Soak celery in salt water overnight, then cut it thin.

  2. Pull the boiled meat into long strips, remove all fat, and cut into very small pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat together egg yolks, mustard, and sugar.

  2. Gradually add vinegar and butter, cooking until thick.

  3. Stir in chopped red pepper and let the mixture cool.

Assemble

  1. Remove the insides of the apples, fill them with the salad, and replace the tops.

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. Almond + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

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

  4. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

  5. Filbert + almondtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and bind it into a smooth, creamy custard.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sugar and richness of the butter and yolks.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the cooked dressing.
Veal or lean pork
Provides the main body and savory meat flavor of the salad.
Filberts and almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft salad.
Pickles
Add tangy, acidic bite that cuts through the rich dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing until thick. Egg yolks thicken and can scramble if heated too fast or too long. Cooking gently and stirring constantly keeps the dressing smooth and creamy.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, almond, apple, egg, mustard, 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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