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Salad

Apple Salad

A salad of sliced tart apples and celery dressed with lemon juice, oil, sugar, cayenne, salt, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice tart apples into thin slices.

  2. Cut celery into cubes and place it in the center of a dish.

  3. Layer the apple slices around the celery, overlapping them.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix lemon juice, oil, sugar, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Beat in the whipped cream until combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Optionally, hollow out an apple, mince the apple and celery, and fill the apple shell with the mixture.

  2. Serve individually.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

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

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples
Provide the main body and crisp texture of the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savory contrast to the apples.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and slows browning of cut apple.
Oil
Adds fat and smooth body to the dressing.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, creamy texture to the dressing.

The step that matters

Layering the apple slices. Cut apple turns brown as it oxidizes, so slices should be dressed with lemon juice and kept covered or served soon after cutting to stay pale and appealing.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, lemon, sugar, cream):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, lemon, sugar, cream. 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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