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Salad

Apple Salad

A chilled salad of thinly sliced apples and celery dressed with mustard, vinegar, and a creamy egg yolk dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Chop or slice the apple and celery into very thin pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine the apple, celery, salt, mustard, pepper, and cider vinegar. Stir well and cover the bowl.

  3. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolk, salt, sugar, and cayenne.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil or melted butter, stirring continuously.

  3. If desired, rub the serving bowl with a slice of onion before serving the salad.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple
Provides crisp texture and tart, juicy flavor to the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp, fresh texture that holds up under the dressing.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil or butter into the dressing, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and sharpens the dressing.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing richness.

The step that matters

Slowly add the oil or butter while stirring. Adding fat gradually while stirring lets the egg yolk emulsify it into a smooth, thick dressing. Adding it too fast can cause the mixture to separate and stay oily.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, mustard, pepper, cider, vinegar, egg, sugar):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, mustard, pepper, cider, vinegar, egg, 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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