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Apple Salad

A salad of thinly sliced tart apples, walnuts, and a dressing of whipped cream, sugar, salt, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, core, quarter, and slice the apples very thin.

  2. Break the walnuts into small pieces.

Dress and serve

  1. Add the sugar, salt and whipped cream to the mayonnaise dressing.

  2. Mix the apples and walnuts, then add the dressing.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Cream + walnuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 sharp acidity that balances the sweet dressing.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft apples.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing
Supplies fat and body that coats the apples and walnuts.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to offset the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Slicing the apples very thin. Apples brown quickly once cut because enzymes react with oxygen in the air. Thin slices and serving immediately limit browning and keep the texture crisp.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cream, sugar. 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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