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Salad

Randolph Chicken Salad

A salad of diced chicken and celery tossed with French dressing, served in lettuce cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Randolph Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and crisp the lettuce, then arrange it in cups on a platter.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chicken and celery with French dressing.

  2. Chill the mixture until very cold, then pile it into the lettuce cups.

Finish

  1. Dress the salad with additional salad 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.

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. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Crisp leaves hold the filling and add cool, fresh crunch.
Cooked chicken
Supplies the main protein and the bulk of the filling.
Celery
Adds a crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken.
French dressing
Coats the chicken and celery, adding moisture and tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture until very cold. Thorough chilling keeps the celery crisp and firms the filling, so it holds its shape and does not wilt the lettuce cups.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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