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Salad

Waldorf Salad

A salad of apple, celery, lettuce, walnuts, and hard‑boiled eggs, dressed with a dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Waldorf Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and walnut 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 ↓

Waldorf Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine equal parts of cubed apple and celery.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce.

  3. Top with peeled walnuts and sliced cold hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Pour dressing over 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lettuce + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apple
Adds crisp texture and a mild sweetness that balances the savory elements.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly salty vegetal note.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor, along with some fat for richness.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a soft, creamy texture and substance to the salad.
Lettuce
Forms a crisp base that holds the salad and adds freshness.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, lettuce, walnut, egg. 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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