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Salad

Nut Salad

A salad of apples and walnuts topped with whipped cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Nut Salad

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chopped apples and chopped walnuts in a bowl.

  2. Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

Sweeten and combine

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the whipped cream.

  2. Stir a small portion of the sweetened whipped cream into the apple and walnut mixture.

Serve

  1. Transfer the salad to a serving dish and top with the remaining whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body, fresh juiciness and mild tartness of the salad.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a slightly bitter, nutty contrast to the soft apple.
Heavy cream
Whipped into a light, airy topping that adds richness and a creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream and balances the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Whipping the cream to stiff peaks. Cream is whipped until it holds its shape; overwhipping makes it grainy and can turn it into butter, so stop as soon as stiff peaks form.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cream):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cream. 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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