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Salad

Meat Salads

A salad made from leftover cooked meat, celery, apples, oil, vinegar, and mayonnaise or boiled dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Meat Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leftover meat into bite-sized pieces.

  2. Dice the celery and apples.

Combine and dress

  1. In a bowl, combine the meat, celery, and apples.

  2. Drizzle with oil and vinegar, and mix gently.

  3. Add mayonnaise or boiled dressing to taste, and serve.

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 + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,884 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

  4. Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + appletop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover cooked meat
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft meat.
Apples
Add sweetness and a crisp, juicy bite.
Mayonnaise or boiled dressing
Adds richness and moisture that binds the salad together.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, vinegar):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, vinegar. 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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