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Salad

Neufchatel Cheese Salad

A chilled cheese salad made with Neufchâtel cheese, whipped cream, plums, pecans, and seasonings, served on lettuce with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Neufchatel Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Run the Neufchâtel cheese through a potato masher.

  2. Add the whipped cream, halved plums, and broken pecans.

  3. Season with red pepper, white pepper, and salt.

Chill and serve

  1. Grease a mold with almond oil and pack the mixture into it.

  2. Pack the mold in ice and salt for 4 hours.

  3. When ready to serve, turn out onto a bed of lettuce leaves.

  4. Decorate with halved plums and serve with mayonnaise 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. Almond + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Pecans + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Plum + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 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

Neufchâtel cheese
Provides the creamy, rich base that holds the salad together and gives it body.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and a light, airy texture when whipped into the cheese.
Plums
Add juicy sweetness and a touch of acidity that contrasts with the rich cheese.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavour against the soft cheese.

The step that matters

Packing the mold in ice and salt for 4 hours. The mixture must stay cold and firm while it sets. Ice packed with salt lowers the temperature well below freezing point of plain ice, so the cheese chills evenly and holds its shape when turned out.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, cream, plum, pecans, pepper, almond, lettuce):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, plum, pecans, pepper, almond, 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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