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Salad

Normandy Salad

A salad of French peas, English walnuts, lettuce, nasturtiums, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 491 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Normandy Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the French peas in cold water, then drain and dry on a towel.

  2. Blanch the walnuts in boiling water for a few minutes, then cut them into small pieces the size of the peas.

Assemble

  1. Sprinkle the walnuts with salt and mix with enough mayonnaise to hold together.

  2. Arrange the mixture on lettuce leaves, placing nasturtiums between the leaves.

  3. Cover the nuts and peas with the remaining mayonnaise.

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. Walnut + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together491 recipes

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

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Peas + walnuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Binds the walnuts and peas together and adds moisture and richness to the salad.
English walnuts
Provide crunch and a rich, fatty texture that contrasts with the soft peas.
French peas
Add bulk, sweetness and a tender texture to the salad.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Brazil nutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, 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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