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Salad

Apple and Celery Salad

A salad of chopped apples, celery, and walnuts mixed with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Apple and Celery Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped apples, chopped celery, and walnut meats.

  2. Mix well with mayonnaise dressing until evenly coated.

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

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

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

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

  3. 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 balances the rich dressing.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savory note that holds up under dressing.
Walnuts
Add crunchy texture and a toasty, nutty flavor against the soft fruit.
Mayonnaise dressing
Coats the pieces and adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad together.

The step that matters

Mix well with mayonnaise dressing until evenly coated. Apples oxidize and brown once cut, and dressing applied unevenly leaves some pieces dry and others heavy. Thorough, gentle coating spreads the fat and moisture evenly and keeps the salad from turning soggy in spots.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut. 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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