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Salad

Bordure De Noix E* Celeri a LA Monaco

A chilled salad of walnuts, celery, and tomato pulp served in a mold with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 334 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Coat a plain border mold (pint size) with a thin layer of aspic jelly and decorate the sides with cut chillies and tarragon leaves.

  2. Mix ½ cup mayonnaise with enough liquid aspic jelly to set, then line the decorated mold with this mixture and place it in a cool place to set.

Prepare the walnuts and filling

  1. In a saucepan, cover the walnuts with boiling water, add a little salt, mace, bay leaf, and onion, and boil for about 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the walnuts, place them in cold water, remove the skins, and shake them gently in a clean cloth.

  3. Cut the walnuts into shreds.

  4. Dissolve the gelatine and add it to the tomato pulp.

  5. Season the tomato pulp with pepper, salt, and ½ teaspoon paprika, add vinegar, boil, and strain.

  6. When almost cold, mix in half of the shredded walnuts, fill the border mold with this preparation, and place it in a cool place until needed.

Assemble and serve

  1. Wash and dry the celery, cut the white part into julienne strips, then mix them in a bowl with the remaining walnuts and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. When ready to serve, unmold the border onto a round dish.

  3. Dress the salad with mayonnaise and place it in the center of the dish, piling it high.

  4. Sprinkle with chopped gherkin and serve.

  5. Optionally, mix in a little green salad, lettuce, or endive with the celery and walnuts.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + tarragontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together334 recipes

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

  2. Celery + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 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

Walnuts
Provide the crunchy texture and nutty flavour of the salad.
Gelatine
Sets the tomato pulp so the filling holds its shape when unmolded.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, and helps the aspic lining set and the salad dress.
Aspic jelly
Forms a clear, set lining that gives the border mold its shape and finish.
Tomato pulp
Provides acidity, colour and body to the filling.
White celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild flavour as the salad's base.

The step that matters

Setting the aspic lining. The mayonnaise and aspic mixture must be liquid enough to coat the mold yet set firmly in a cool place. If it is too warm or too thin, the lining will slide or blur when the filling is added, and the border will not unmold cleanly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, walnut, onion, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Dillbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, onion, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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