Skip to main content
Salad

Apple Salad

A salad of celery and apples dressed with a sweet mustard vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Combine the chopped celery and apple pieces in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, whisk together the eggs, sugar, mustard, salt, butter, and pepper.

  2. Cook over low heat for a few minutes until slightly thickened.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot dressing over the celery and apples and mix well.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set gently with the heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and apples.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and sharpens the flavour.
Apples
Provide crisp texture and fresh, tart flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing over low heat. Eggs can scramble if the heat is too high. Gentle, low heat lets them thicken the dressing smoothly while stirring keeps them from curdling.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

More apple salad recipes

Baked 3 See all 45 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes