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Salad

Cheese Salad

A chilled cheese salad made with cream, cheese, olives, gelatin, and seasonings, served on lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water and let it cool slightly.

  2. Whip the cream until fluffy.

Make and set the salad

  1. Stir in the cream cheese, dissolved gelatin, olives, red pepper, mustard, and salt.

  2. Pour the mixture into molds and set on ice to harden.

Serve

  1. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in molds.
Cream
Whipped to add airiness and a light, creamy texture.
Eastern cream cheese
Adds richness and body, giving the salad its main flavour and structure.
Olives or pimentos
Add salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the rich cheese.

The step that matters

Let the gelatin cool slightly before stirring it in. Gelatin that is too hot can thin the cream and cheese mixture and weaken its setting, while gelatin that is too cool may set in lumps. Cooling it only slightly keeps it fluid so it blends evenly before the mixture is chilled to firm up.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, olive, cream cheese, gelatin, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, olive, cream cheese, gelatin, pepper, lettuce. 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.

More cheese salad recipes

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