Skip to main content
Main

Apple Chicken Salad

A salad of apples filled with a chicken and green pepper mixture, served chilled with mayonnaise on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Apple Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Scoop out the centers of the apples.

  2. Mix the minced chicken, green pepper, and salt with enough cream to moisten.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the apples with the chicken mixture.

  2. Place the apples in a steamer and cook until almost tender.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the apples on ice.

  2. Serve with mayonnaise on a bed of 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.

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.

  1. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Apple + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the hollow shell that holds the filling and a tender, slightly tart base.
Cooked chicken
Supplies the main protein and bulk of the salad filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the minced chicken filling stays soft.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that carries flavour across the salad.

The step that matters

Steaming the filled apples until almost tender. Overcooking softens the apples into mush and can release juice that thins the filling. Stopping at almost tender keeps their shape and texture, and the chilling step then firms the dish.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, cream, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, cream, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes