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Salad

Salade Louis

A salad of diced chicken, beets, Swiss cheese, potatoes, green pepper, romaine lettuce, chives, French dressing, onion, and hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 261 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salade Louis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken, beets, Swiss cheese, boiled potatoes, and green pepper into small cubes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the sliced Romaine lettuce and chopped chives, then mix everything together well.

  2. Garnish with sliced Bermuda onion and sliced hard-boiled egg.

  3. Drizzle with French dressing before serving.

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. Lettuce + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together611 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Chive + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad's substance.
Swiss cheese
Adds fat and a savoury, rich flavour to the mixture.
Boiled potatoes
Add starchy body and a soft, filling texture to the salad.
French dressing
Adds moisture, acidity and sweetness that ties the salad together.
Beets
Contribute earthy sweetness and a vivid colour.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds richness and a firm, creamy texture as a garnish.

The step that matters

Mix everything together well. Dressing added without even mixing can pool at the bottom or leave some pieces bare, so the flavour and moisture are unevenly spread. Gentle, thorough mixing coats each cube and leaf evenly, while overworking can bruise the lettuce and potatoes.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, swiss cheese, potato, pepper, chive, onion):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, swiss cheese, potato, pepper, chive, onion. 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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