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Salad

Cashew Salad

A salad of spinach and lettuce dressed with a vinaigrette of sugar, vinegar, mustard, garlic, celery seed, salt, pepper, topped with cashews.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,356 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine sugar, vinegar, mustard, garlic, celery seed, salt and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Whisk until combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Toss greens in the dressing and place on individual serving plates.

  2. Sprinkle with the cashews and serve immediately.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mustard + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Mustard + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,160 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Garlic + spinachtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  5. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang and brightness.
Fresh raw spinach
Forms the leafy base of the salad, adding body and fresh flavor.
Fresh leaf lettuce
Adds crisp, tender leaves that make up the bulk of the salad.
Cashews
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that contrasts with the leaves.

The step that matters

Dressing the greens. Toss the leaves just before serving. Acid in the dressing slowly wilts delicate greens, so dressing them too early leaves limp, soggy salad.

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

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

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Dillbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, mustard, celery, pepper, spinach, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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