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Salad

Nut Salad

A salad of chopped walnuts and celery dressed with a mayonnaise-based vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Nut Salad

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 ↓

Nut Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chopped walnuts and celery in a bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix egg yolk, salt, sugar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Slowly add olive oil drop by drop while stirring continuously until emulsified.

  2. Moisten the mixture with lemon juice or vinegar to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve the nut and celery mixture with the mayonnaise dressing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · 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 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and water-free mixture into a thick, stable mayonnaise-style dressing.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the dressing as it emulsifies.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, slightly bitter nuttiness that contrasts with the soft celery.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil must be added slowly, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Egg yolk lecithin can only bind the oil into a stable emulsion if the oil is dispersed gradually; adding it too fast causes the dressing to break and separate.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, egg, sugar, mustard, pepper, olive, lemon):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, egg, sugar, mustard, pepper, olive, lemon. 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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