Name: Waldorf Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup sour apples, chopped finely; 1 cup celery, chopped finely; 1 cup English walnuts, chopped finely; Salad dressing; Tomatoes (for serving); Lettuce leaves (for serving)

Why it works: Celery and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,375 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

1 cup sour apples, chopped finely
1 cup celery, chopped finely
1 cup English walnuts, chopped finely
Salad dressing
Tomatoes (for serving)
Lettuce leaves (for serving)

Directions

Prepare

Chop the sour apples, celery, and English walnuts very finely.
Mix the chopped ingredients with salad dressing.
Prepare the tomatoes by cutting a slice from the stem end and removing the center.

Fill and serve

Fill the hollowed tomatoes with the salad mixture.
Replace the top slice of the tomato and serve on a lettuce leaf.

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.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Celery + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,375 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Walnut + lettucetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together491 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Celery + lettucetop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together851 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Tomato + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,654 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples: Provide tart flavor and crisp texture that contrast with the creamy dressing.
Celery: Adds crunch and a fresh, mildly savory note to the salad.
English walnuts: Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter flavor that balances the sweetness.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

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

Avocadobetter flavor fit
Cherrybetter flavor fit
Limebetter flavor fit
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, walnut, tomato, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.