Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 1 large hen; 1 pod red pepper; 12 hard-boiled eggs; ½ cup butter; cayenne pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; vinegar to taste; 1½ stalks celery (or cabbage with celery seed soaked in vinegar)

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

Boil the hen with the red pepper until tender.

Make the dressing

Cool the eggs in cold water, then mash the yolks and mix with ⅓ cup mustard and vinegar until smooth.
Cream the butter and mix it with the yolks and mustard.

Combine and season

Chop the egg whites and add to the chicken and yolk mixture.
Add cayenne pepper and salt, then adjust vinegar to taste.
If using cabbage, soak it overnight in vinegar before adding.

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.

Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + celerytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,627 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs: Yolks form a smooth, rich base, while chopped whites add body to the salad.
Butter: Creamed into the yolks, it adds richness and a smooth, soft texture.
Mustard (in the method): Adds sharp flavour that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the fat.