Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs; 1 cup pickled beets or cucumbers; 1 head of lettuce

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

4 hard boiled eggs
1 cup pickled beets or cucumbers
1 head of lettuce

Directions

Slice the hard boiled eggs into rings.
Layer the sliced eggs alternately with sliced pickled beets or cucumbers.
Serve on a bed of tender lettuce.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + cucumbertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,346 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).