Name: Nut Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups chopped apples; 1 cup chopped celery; ½ cup walnuts; sour whipped cream (for dressing)

Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

2 cups chopped apples
1 cup chopped celery
½ cup walnuts
sour whipped cream (for dressing)

Directions

Prepare

Chop the apples and celery finely.

Assemble and serve

Combine the chopped apples, celery, and walnuts in a bowl.
Dress the mixture with sour whipped cream.
Serve the salad in apple shells.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,863 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide crisp texture and natural sweetness as the salad's base.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savory bite to the salad.
Walnuts: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor that contrasts the soft apple.
Sour whipped cream: Adds richness and tangy acidity that binds and moistens the chopped ingredients.