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Asparagus Salad

A chilled asparagus salad with chicken, celery, capers, and a gelatinous dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Asparagus Salad

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, Knox gelatine, and chicken stock. Stir until dissolved.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, paprika, and onion juice.

  3. When the mixture begins to set, fold in chicken, celery, and capers.

Mold and chill

  1. Dip molds in cold water, line with asparagus tips down, and fill with the jelly mixture.

  2. Chill until very firm.

Serve

  1. To serve, turn out onto lettuce, drizzle with French dressing, and top with mayonnaise and a sprinkle of paprika.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Capers + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Knox gelatine
Sets the chicken stock into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the jelly and adds savory flavor.
Cooked chicken breast
Provides the protein and bulk suspended within the set jelly.
Asparagus spears
Lined along the mold bottom, they become the visible decorative top of the salad.
Sugar
Adds a light sweetness that balances the salty and acidic seasonings.

The step that matters

When the mixture begins to set, fold in chicken, celery, and capers.. Gelatine sets as it cools, so if the mixture is fully firm the chicken, celery, and capers will not distribute evenly. Adding them at the first sign of thickening keeps them suspended throughout the jelly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chicken, celery, capers, asparagus, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chicken, celery, capers, asparagus, 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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