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Salad

Russian Salad

A gelatin-based salad with celery, pecan, and a chicken jelly dressing, served in cup forms and garnished with lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Russian Salad

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Russian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin cups

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in the clear chicken consommé.

  2. Shape the mixture into cup forms.

Fill and serve

  1. Combine the chopped celery and pecan meats with the dressing made from melted chicken jelly, olive oil, vinegar, and salt.

  2. Fill the shaped gelatin cups with the celery and pecan mixture.

  3. Cover the top with additional jelly to seal it.

  4. Turn the cups onto a flat dish and surround with shredded lettuce before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  4. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the consommé into a firm cup that holds the filling together.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the filling.
Pecan meats
Adds crunch and a rich, nutty flavour to the filling.
Melted chicken jelly
Binds the dressing and adds savoury moisture and gloss to the filling.
Olive oil
Carries flavour in the dressing and keeps the filling moist.

The step that matters

Shape the mixture into cup forms. Gelatin only sets firmly at a sufficient concentration and once fully cooled, so the cups must be left to chill until firm before filling. Unset gelatin will collapse or leak when filled.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, chicken, meat, olive, vinegar, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, chicken, meat, olive, vinegar, 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.

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