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Salad

Nut Salad

A fruit and nut salad with a sweet dressing of flour, vinegar, butter, sugar, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Nut Salad

Why it works: Grape and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the grapes in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Break the walnuts without chopping them.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, vinegar, butter, sugar, and beaten eggs.

  2. Cook the mixture until thick, then let it cool.

  3. Once cooled, fold in the whipped cream.

Assemble

  1. Mix the dressing with the fruit and nuts just before serving.

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. Grape + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Grape + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set when cooked, giving it body.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy texture to the cooled dressing.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, helping it hold together.
Malaga grapes
Provide juicy sweetness and moisture to the salad.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor against the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until thick, then let it cool. Eggs and flour thicken as they heat, but overcooking can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Cooling fully before folding in whipped cream keeps the cream from melting and thinning the dressing.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (grape, apple, banana, flour, vinegar, butter, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, apple, banana, flour, vinegar, butter, sugar. 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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