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Salad

Apple and Celery Salad

A salad of diced apples, chopped celery, lettuce, mayonnaise, cayenne pepper, and optional walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Apple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare mayonnaise, seasoning it with a pinch of cayenne.

  2. Peel and dice the apples, mixing them with the mayonnaise immediately to prevent browning.

  3. Chop the celery into bits about ½ by ¼ inch long, using half the amount of celery as apples.

Assemble the salad

  1. Combine the apples and celery in a bowl with white lettuce leaves.

  2. If desired, add blanched and broken English walnuts, about ¼ cup.

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. Lettuce + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Coats the apples and celery, adding richness and moisture while keeping the cut apple from browning.
Tart crisp apples
Provide the main crisp texture and a tart, fresh flavour that balances the mayonnaise.
Celery
Adds crunch and a mild, fresh vegetal note to the salad.
English walnuts
Add a toasty, slightly bitter crunch that contrasts with the soft dressing.

The step that matters

Mixing the apples with mayonnaise right after cutting. Cut apple surfaces oxidise and turn brown when exposed to air. Coating them quickly with mayonnaise limits contact with oxygen, keeping the salad pale and fresh-looking.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, apple, celery, lettuce):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, apple, celery, lettuce. 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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