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Salad

English Walnut Salad

A salad of English walnuts, apples, mayonnaise, lettuce, and optional cold boiled chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce 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 ↓

English Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the walnuts and place them in boiling water to remove the skin.

  2. Chop the apples, pare and core them, then cut into dice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the walnuts with the diced apples and mayonnaise dressing.

  2. If desired, mix in pieces of cold boiled chicken before serving.

  3. Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Walnut + appletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Walnut + chickentop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

English walnuts
Provide crunch and a rich, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft apple.
Apples
Add moisture, crisp texture and a mild sweet-tart flavour.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the walnuts and apples together.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, lettuce, chicken):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, lettuce, chicken. 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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