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Salad

Apple Salad

A salad of celery, apples, nuts, and a custard-like dressing of egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped celery, apples, and nuts.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, pepper, and salt.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the butter and vinegar to the egg mixture and cook in a bowl set over boiling water, stirring constantly.

  2. Once thickened, remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Drizzle in a little cream before serving.

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

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

  2. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a smooth, rich body.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they lighten the dressing and add airy texture when folded in.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rich.
Apples
Provide crisp texture and natural sweetness to the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture over simmering water. Stirring constantly over gentle, indirect heat keeps the egg yolks from scrambling. Egg proteins set smoothly when heated slowly, so the dressing thickens without curdling.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, apple, egg, sugar, pepper, butter, vinegar. 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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