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Meat Salad

A salad of cold boiled meat, celery, eggs, pickles, and a mustard‑butter dressing.

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 ↓

Meat Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled meat and celery.

  2. Chop the whites of the hard boiled eggs and mix the yolks.

  3. Pour the egg yolk mixture over the meat and celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a double boiler, combine the egg yolks, salt, pepper, butter, mustard, and onions.

  2. Cook the mixture until thick.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture over the meat mixture.

  4. Add the chopped pickles and vinegar if a sour taste is desired.

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. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Egg yolks cooked into a thick custard bind the meat and celery together.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the cooked yolk dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour that balances the richness of the yolks.
Cucumber pickles
Add crunch and a sweet-sour tang to the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture until thick. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the double boiler is too hot, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so the dressing should be cooked slowly and stirred until it coats a spoon.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, egg, pepper, butter, mustard, onion):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, egg, pepper, butter, mustard, onion. 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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