Name: Nut and Apple Salad, Mayonnaise
Ingredients: 2 apples, diced; ½ cup walnuts, chopped; ¼ cup mayonnaise; Salt to taste

Why it works: Apple and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,051 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nut and Apple Salad, Mayonnaise

Ingredients

2 apples, diced
½ cup walnuts, chopped
¼ cup mayonnaise
Salt to taste

Directions

Combine

In a bowl, combine diced apples and chopped walnuts.
Add mayonnaise and mix until well coated.

Season and serve

Season with salt to taste.
Serve chilled.

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.

Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,051 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide crisp texture and natural sweetness that contrasts with the creamy dressing.
Walnuts: Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter nuttiness that balances the sweet apples.
Mayonnaise: Adds creaminess and fat, binding the apples and walnuts together with a smooth coating.

“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.