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Lemon Jelly Salad

A chilled salad of lemon gelatin with green pepper, olives, walnuts, served with lettuce and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Lemon Jelly Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for a few minutes.

  2. Add boiling water, sugar, and lemon juice to the soaked gelatin and stir until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture and chill until it begins to thicken.

  4. Fold in the green pepper, stuffed olives, and walnut meats.

  5. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with lettuce and mayonnaise.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Olive + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor to the jelly.
Green pepper
Adds crisp texture and fresh, grassy flavor to the set jelly.
Stuffed olives
Add salty, briny bites that contrast with the sweet jelly.
English walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavor throughout the jelly.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture and chill until it begins to thicken. Chilling only until it starts to thicken keeps the gelatin from setting before the vegetables and walnuts are folded in. If it is too thick, the pieces will not distribute evenly. If it is still too thin, the pieces will sink and the jelly may not set firmly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, sugar, pepper, olive, walnut, meat, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, pepper, olive, walnut, meat, 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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