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Salad

Celery, Apple-and-green-pepper Salad

A salad of crisp celery, diced apples, and shredded green pepper tossed with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Celery, Apple-and-green-pepper Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crisp the celery by soaking it in very cold water with lemon slices for 30 minutes.

  2. Cut the celery into bits.

  3. Peel and slice the apples, then cut them into cubes or small shapes.

  4. Sprinkle the apple pieces with lemon juice to prevent discoloration and add flavor.

  5. Scald the green pepper, remove seeds and veins, and cut it into fine shreds.

Assemble

  1. Mix equal portions of apple and celery with the green pepper.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Apples
Add crunch and natural sweetness that balances the savory vegetables.
Green pepper
Adds a slightly bitter, fresh bite and crisp texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and slows browning of cut apple.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the apple pieces with lemon juice. Cut apple browns quickly because its exposed flesh oxidises when it meets air. Acid from lemon juice slows this browning and keeps the apple pale, so it should be added right after cutting.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, lemon, pepper. 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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