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Salad

Chestnut and Cjiickory Salad

A salad of boiled chestnuts and chicory leaves dressed with lemon, paprika, and salad dressing, garnished with sweet green pepper rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and chicory share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Chestnut and Cjiickory Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Shell the chestnuts.

  2. Blanch the chestnuts.

  3. Boil the chestnuts until tender.

  4. Drain the chestnuts.

  5. Sprinkle with salt.

  6. Dust with paprika.

  7. Set aside to cool.

  8. Refrigerate.

Prepare the chicory

  1. Wash the chicory. Wipe it carefully.

  2. Arrange the chicory leaves in a cold salad bowl.

Assemble and serve

  1. Squeeze lemon juice over the chestnuts.

  2. Pour the salad dressing over them.

  3. Arrange the chestnuts in the center of the chicory.

  4. Garnish with rings of sweet green peppers.

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. Chestnut + chicorytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Chicory + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chestnut + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Their starchy flesh becomes tender and mild, forming the bulk of the salad.
Curly chicory
Its crisp, slightly bitter leaves provide the base and contrast with the sweet chestnuts.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the chestnuts and balances the dressing.
Salad dressing
Coats the chestnuts and chicory, adding moisture and flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the chestnuts until tender. Chestnuts stay hard and starchy if underdone, and overcooking makes them mushy and crumbly. Testing for tenderness before draining keeps them pleasantly firm yet soft.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicory, lemon, pepper):

  1. Chestnutthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicory, lemon, pepper. 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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