Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Cook the chicken in boiling water, covering it completely, with salt, peppercorns, clove, bay leaf, onion, and celery until tender.
Remove the chicken from the liquid and let it cool.
Cut the meat into half-inch pieces.
Save the cooking liquid and bones for soup stock.
Assemble the salad
Cut the celery into half-inch pieces, using half as much celery as chicken.
Mix 2 cups of chicken with 1 cup of celery and add ½ cup of walnuts or olives if desired.
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.
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Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together852 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,668 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,592 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Whole chicken or fowl
- Provides the cooked meat that forms the body of the salad.
- Celery
- Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
- Walnuts or olives
- Optional addition that adds crunch or briny flavour to the salad.
The step that matters
Cook the chicken until tender in liquid covering it completely. Keeping the chicken fully submerged cooks it evenly, while cooking only until tender keeps the meat moist and easy to cut into clean pieces.
Swap the walnut
The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, clove, onion, celery):
- Beansfits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Lentilsfits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, clove, onion, celery. 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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