Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 1 cold cooked fowl, diced; 2 cups celery, chopped; salt to taste; pepper to taste; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce for garnish; hard boiled eggs for garnish; stuffed olives or strips of pimentos for garnish

Why it works: Celery and lettuce 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 ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cold cooked fowl into dice, removing all skins and gristle.
Mix the diced fowl with the chopped celery.
Add salt and pepper to taste and mix thoroughly.

Dress and chill

Pour mayonnaise dressing over the salad and mix well.
Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Serve

Garnish with lettuce, hard boiled eggs, and stuffed olives or pimentos.

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.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked fowl: Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft meat.
Mayonnaise dressing: Adds fat and moisture that bind the salad and carry its flavour.