Skip to main content
Salad

Celery, Mayonnaise

A salad of celery tossed in a homemade mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Celery, Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk, mustard, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and a little water together.

  2. Slowly pour in the olive oil drop by drop while continuing to beat the mixture.

  3. Add a small spoonful of boiling water to the mayonnaise.

Assemble and serve

  1. Wash and wipe the celery, then cut it into pieces in a salad bowl.

  2. Pour the mayonnaise over the celery, mix well, and serve.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and water into a thick, stable mayonnaise.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the mayonnaise its rich body and texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Celery
Supplies the crisp texture and fresh flavour of the salad.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the olive oil drop by drop while continuing to beat the mixture.. Oil must be added very gradually so the droplets are fully dispersed by the egg yolk's lecithin. Pouring too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the mayonnaise runny and separated.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, lemon, olive, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, lemon, olive, celery. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes