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Salad

Veal or Mock Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled veal or mock chicken mixed with celery, onion, eggs, and a dressing of mustard, sugar, vinegar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 ↓

Veal or Mock Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the veal in water until tender, then let it cool in the cooking water.

  2. Chop or grind the veal finely.

  3. In a bowl, combine the chopped veal, celery, and onion.

  4. Chop the egg whites and add them to the mixture; mash the yolks separately.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the mashed yolks with mustard, sugar, red pepper, and gradually beat in the olive oil or melted butter.

  2. Slowly add vinegar until the dressing reaches the desired consistency.

Assemble and serve

  1. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then pour the dressing over it and mix carefully.

  2. If the salad is not moist enough, add more vinegar, lemon juice, or a little of the reserved cooking water.

  3. Garnish with lettuce leaves and celery tops 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.

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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

Veal
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg yolks mashed into the dressing add richness and creaminess; whites add body.
Olive oil or melted butter
Emulsified into the yolks to create a rich, smooth dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Mustard
Its emulsifying compounds help hold the oil and yolk dressing together.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, vegetal crunch to the chopped mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the oil into the yolks. Adding the oil slowly while beating lets yolk lecithin and mustard emulsify it into a stable dressing. Adding it too fast can cause it to separate and turn the dressing greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, lemon, egg, mustard, sugar, 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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