Waldorf Salad

My foremost requirement in using a recipe from a cookbook is that it is comprised of no more than six ingredients, at most. This Waldorf Salad from Ogilivie's Book for a Cook only called for five! Therefore I found myself making salad dressing during a work break at midnight last night (of course this increased the ingredient count considerably, but it somehow seemed like the right thing to do). I followed this recipe for blue cheese dressing, minus the roasting of the garlic.

Incidentally, first published in 1905, Ogilvie's is a charming little Whitecap reproduction, retaining its original turn-of-the-century typesetting and editing.

Waldorf Salad

Materials.
1 cup apples (peeled and chopped).
1 cup celery (chopped).
1/2 cup walnuts (chopped).
Salad dressing.
Lettuce leaves

Preparation.
Mix apples, celery and walnuts with salad dressing. Garnish with lettuce leaves. Do not make until ready to use, as apples turn dark.

I used Gala apples (probably, in retrospect, the wrong choice), and baby spinach for the lettuce. I forgot to chop the walnuts, and I purposely didn't peel the apples (it looks nicer that way).

I'm not sold on this recipe. The first few bites were exciting, but maybe that's just because I was excited to have made something. Maybe it needs a lighter dressing. I suppose the blue cheese is a little overbearing. It might also be better if everything was chopped smaller. The ingredients are an interesting mix, though. Tart, tangy apples and dull, bitter walnuts could not be further away from each other on the taste spectrum, and the neutrality of tasteless celery kind of ties the two together, or else gives the tastebuds a rest from either extreme.