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Apple-and-date Salad

A salad of sliced apples and dates dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By New Orleans Federation of Clubs · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and apple work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 119 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and core about three choice apples.

  2. Cut the apples into match-like pieces; there should be about one pint.

  3. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the apples.

  4. Pour boiling water over half a pound of dates.

  5. Separate the dates with a silver fork and skim out onto an agate dish.

  6. Let the dates dry off in a hot oven.

  7. When cold, cut each date into four or five strips, rejecting the stones.

  8. Sprinkle the date strips with one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt and three or four tablespoonfuls of olive oil.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the apples and dates and set aside in a cool place for about an hour.

  2. When ready to serve, add a tablespoonful of lemon juice and one or two tablespoonfuls of oil if the mixture seems dry. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Serve in a bowl lined with lettuce hearts.

By New Orleans Federation of Clubs. 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. See the original page.

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. Dates + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Olive + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + appletop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,335 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Lemon + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,544 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + datestop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk and crisp texture of the salad.
Dates
Add sweetness and a chewy texture that contrasts with the apples.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture, coating the dates and keeping the mixture from drying out.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and slows browning of the apples.

The step that matters

Drying the dates in the oven. Dates must be dried enough to cut cleanly and absorb the oil rather than turning sticky or soggy. Heat drives off surface moisture, so the dates keep a firm, chewy texture in the salad.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, dates, apple):

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Grapebetter flavor fit
  3. Pearbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, dates, apple. 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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