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Veal Salad

A cold salad of veal, celery, nuts, and potatoes dressed with a vinaigrette of egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the veal, celery, nuts, and potatoes.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix the egg yolks, salt, butter, pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Once cooled, fold in the whipped cream and lemon juice.

Combine

  1. Pour the dressing over the veal mixture and toss to combine.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Celery + mixed nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 set over gentle heat and bind it into a creamy emulsion.
Veal
Provides the main protein body of the salad, giving it substance and a meaty bite.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the cooled dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Potatoes
Add starch and soft body that absorb some dressing and make the salad more filling.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing over low heat. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but high heat or neglect can scramble them into lumps. Stirring constantly over low heat keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the mixed nuts

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Mixed nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, potato, vinegar, egg, butter, pepper. 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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