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Salad

Pomona Salad

A salad of apples, celery, blanched almonds, and lettuce hearts dressed with French dressing and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and endive share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pomona Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the apples into straw-shaped pieces, one inch long.

  2. Cut the hearts of celery into the same shape, using half the quantity of apples.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the apples, celery, and almonds; toss lightly.

  2. Marinate with French dressing and garnish with Mayonnaise.

  3. Serve the mixture in a nest of cress, endive, or lettuce hearts.

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. Almond + endivetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Celery + endivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together160 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  4. Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

  5. Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

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 fresh sweet-tart flavour that contrasts with the nuts.
Celery
Adds crunch and moisture, keeping the salad crisp and juicy.
Jordan almonds
Add crunchy texture and a nutty flavour to the salad.
French dressing
Adds acidity and moisture, seasoning the apples and celery as they marinate.

The step that matters

Marinate with French dressing. Apple pieces brown quickly once cut, and acid in the dressing slows browning while seasoning them. Adding dressing shortly before serving keeps the apples crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, almond, endive):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, almond, endive. 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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