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Salad

Apple Salad

A salad of watercress, diced veal or pork, apples, pickle, oil, vinegar, and dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Apple Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Line a salad bowl with watercress.

  2. Dice the cold veal or lean fresh pork and add it to the watercress.

  3. Dice the tart apples and add them to the bowl.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then add the chopped pickle, oil, and vinegar.

  5. Mix well and cover with salad dressing.

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. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Watercress + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,884 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or pork
Provides the main protein and savory body that makes the salad substantial.
Tart apples
Add crisp texture and a sharp, fruity acidity that balances the meat.
Oil
Carries flavor and coats the other ingredients, adding richness and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and sharpens the overall flavor.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, veal, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, veal, 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.

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