Skip to main content
Salad

Apple Salad

A chilled salad of cubed apples, celery, walnuts, and a whipped cream dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the apples, celery, walnuts, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, mix the whipped cream, salad dressing, and sugar until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the apple mixture and stir gently to combine.

  2. Serve chilled, topped with additional whipped cream if desired.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 crisp, juicy bulk and fresh tartness that the dressing balances.
Celery
Adds a crisp, crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft apple.
English walnuts
Add a toasty, slightly bitter crunch that adds depth against the sweet dressing.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture that coats the salad.
Salad dressing
Supplies tang and creaminess that bind the salad together.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and balances the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Stir the dressing in gently. Whipped cream is an foam of trapped air, so vigorous stirring deflates it and leaves the salad heavy and runny. Folding keeps the dressing light and airy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, cream, 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.

More apple salad recipes

Baked 3 See all 45 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes