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Frozen, Cheese Salad

A chilled cheese mixture made with cream cheese, heavy cream, paprika, sea salt, Worcestershire sauce, lettuce leaves, and French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Frozen, Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the cream cheese with the heavy cream until smooth.

  2. Season with paprika, coarse sea salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

Freeze and shape

  1. Transfer to a freezer and freeze until firm but not too hard.

  2. Remove from the freezer and shape into a brick.

Pack and serve

  1. Pack in salt and ice for at least 1 hour.

  2. Slice and serve on lettuce leaves with French dressing.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Cream cheese + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together461 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Provides the body and firm structure that holds the shape when frozen.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and softens the cream cheese's tang.

The step that matters

Freezing until firm but not too hard. Freezing stops the mixture from being fully solid, so it can be shaped and sliced cleanly. If it freezes too hard, it becomes brittle and crumbles when cut, while under-freezing leaves it too soft to hold a brick shape.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, cream, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, cream, sauce. 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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