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Salad

Vegetable Salad

A chilled vegetable salad set with gelatin, containing cucumber, pimentos, cabbage, celery, onion, vinegar, sugar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the soaked gelatin in boiling water.

Set the salad

  1. Add the remaining ingredients to the dissolved gelatin.

  2. Pour the mixture into a border or solid mold and refrigerate until set.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Cucumber + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Forms the gel that holds the vegetables in place as the salad sets.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cucumber
Adds moisture and a crisp, fresh texture.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk to the set salad.

The step that matters

Dissolve the soaked gelatin fully in boiling water. Gelatin only sets properly when it is completely dissolved. Undissolved granules leave soft or grainy spots and an uneven gel, so the mixture should be fully clear before the other ingredients are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, cabbage, celery, vinegar, clove, parsley, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, cabbage, celery, vinegar, clove, parsley, sugar. 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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