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Salad

Mandarin Chicken Salad

A salad of grilled chicken breast over lettuce with mandarin oranges, chow mein noodles, almonds and sesame dressing.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mandarin orange and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 41 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, tree nuts, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: sesame

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Prepare dressing by combining all dressing ingredients except vegetable oil and sesame seeds in a blender on high speed.

  2. Slowly add oil to mixture (to create an emulsion).

  3. Add sesame seeds and blend for just a couple seconds.

  4. Pour dressing into a covered container (such as a dressing cruet) and chill until needed.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Rub each chicken breast fillet with oil, then lightly salt and pepper each piece.

  2. Grill on medium/high heat until done.

  3. Chill chicken breasts in refrigerator until cold.

  4. Dice chicken breasts into bite-size pieces.

Build and serve the salads

  1. When chicken is cold, build each salad by first tossing and arranging about 4 cups of iceberg lettuce and the red leaf lettuce in the bottom of a large salad bowl or on a plate.

  2. Sprinkle remaining salad ingredients (tomato, cucumber, radishes and red onion) over the lettuce.

  3. Sprinkle the chicken pieces over each salad.

  4. Arrange about ⅓ cup of mandarin orange wedges on each salad.

  5. Sprinkle about ¼ cup of dry chow mein noodles and ¼ cup of roasted sliced almonds on top of each salad.

  6. Add desired amount of sesame dressing and serve.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mandarin orange + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cucumber + radishtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tomato + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chicken + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breast fillets
Provides the main protein, which firms and sets as it cooks through.
Iceberg lettuce
Adds a crisp, watery base that gives the salad its crunch and volume.
Mandarin orange wedges
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the savory dressing and chicken.
Chow mein noodles
Add crunch and a contrasting dry texture against the soft greens.
Roasted sliced almonds
Add toasty flavor and crunch from their roasted fat and dry texture.

The step that matters

Emulsify the dressing by adding oil slowly. Oil must be added gradually while the blender runs so tiny droplets disperse and stay suspended. Adding it all at once can leave the dressing separated and greasy.

Flavor stand-ins for the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, mandarin orange, almond):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Broccolibetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, mandarin orange, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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