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Salad

Apple and Cheese Salad

A salad of cubed apples, cheese, nuts, and mayonnaise served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,559 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Apple and Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Marinate the cubed apples in lemon juice.

  2. Cut the cheese into cubes.

Assemble and serve

  1. When ready to serve, mix the apples and cheese lightly together and add mayonnaise.

  2. Place pecans on top and serve on lettuce leaves.

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. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Apple + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

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

  4. Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

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

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 a tart-sweet flavor that contrasts with the rich cheese.
Lemons
Their juice adds acidity that slows browning on the cut apple cubes.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor, salt and richness that balance the apples.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, binding the apples and cheese into a creamy dressing.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, buttery flavor on top of the soft salad.

The step that matters

Marinating the apples in lemon juice. Cut apples turn brown as enzymes react with oxygen. The acid in lemon juice slows this reaction, so the apples stay pale and fresh-looking until serving.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, lemon, cheese, lettuce):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, cheese, lettuce. 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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