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Salad

Walnut Salad

A salad of chopped sour apple, celery, and walnuts dressed with a boiled egg yolk vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Walnut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the sour apple, celery, and walnuts separately.

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, salt, vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter, and black pepper.

  2. Heat the mixture until it just comes to a boil, then remove from heat.

  3. Let the mixture cool to lukewarm, then stir in the cream.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and serve.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Apple + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar in the dressing.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the dressing and making it smooth.
Sour apple
Adds crisp texture and tart flavour that contrasts with the dressing.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if they overheat. Heat only until the mixture just comes to a boil, then remove it from the heat, and let it cool before adding the cream so the dressing stays smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, walnut, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, egg, vinegar, sugar, mustard, butter. 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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