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Salad

Celery Salad

A salad of boiled and raw eggs with celery, dressed in oil, sugar, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine the boiled and raw eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add salad oil, white sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stir in vinegar and mustard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut celery into half-inch pieces and mix with the dressing.

  2. Serve immediately to maintain crispness.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the crisp, fresh-textured body of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the sweetness.
Raw egg
Adds richness and body to the dressing as it is combined with the boiled egg.
Boiled egg
Adds creamy body and mild richness to the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that complements the vinegar and eggs.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Celery loses its crispness once it sits in the dressing, because the acid and salt draw water out of its cells and soften the stalks. Serving right after mixing keeps the texture firm.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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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