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Salad

Nut Salad

A salad of celery, walnuts, grapes, bananas, sweet cream, and mayonnaise dressing served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Nut Salad

Why it works: Walnut and lettuce 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 ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the celery and walnuts.

  2. Halve the grapes.

  3. If desired, add chopped chicken or meat.

Dress and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the sweet cream and mayonnaise dressing.

  2. Combine all ingredients lightly.

  3. Serve on lettuce leaves.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 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. Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Walnut + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture to the dressing, coating the salad pieces.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salad together.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Green grapes
Add juiciness and natural sweetness.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and freshness.

The step that matters

Combine all ingredients lightly. Gentle folding keeps the celery crisp and the banana and grape pieces intact. Vigorous stirring bruises soft fruit and breaks the dressing into the other ingredients, making the salad watery and mushy.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, grape, chicken, cream, lettuce. 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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