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Salad

Veal Salad

A cold veal salad with celery, eggs, and a custard‑like dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the veal until tender.

  2. Chop the veal and mix with the chopped celery (or cabbage and celery salt).

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and combine with vinegar, red pepper, mustard, cream, salad oil or butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Cook the dressing over low heat until it thickens like custard.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the veal mixture when cold.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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
Forms the main body of the salad as tender, chopped meat.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a custard-like body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the rich cream and eggs.
Sweet or sour cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the tang of the vinegar and mustard.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild aroma to the chopped veal.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat until it thickens like custard.. Eggs thicken when heated gently; too much heat can curdle them and leave the dressing grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, celery, egg, vinegar, pepper, cream, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, egg, vinegar, pepper, cream, butter. 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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