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 ↓
Egg Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Chop the egg whites finely and rub the yolks smooth.
Sprinkle in a little salt and pepper.
Stir the yolk mixture into the mayonnaise dressing.
Mix in the chopped chicken or ham and chopped celery.
Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves.
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.
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Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,033 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together16,012 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,037 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,375 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Provide the main body of the salad, with yolks mashed smooth to bind into the dressing.
- Mayonnaise dressing
- Adds moisture and richness, coating the chopped egg and binding the salad together.
- Chopped chicken or ham
- Adds savory flavor and a firmer, meaty texture to the mixture.
Swap the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, chicken, celery):
- Capsicumfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, 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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