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Manhattan Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Olive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Manhattan Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine equal quantities of cold chicken, celery, apples, and nuts in a bowl.

  2. Mix in mayonnaise dressing to taste.

  3. If desired, add chopped red peppers, olives, capers, or pimentoes.

  4. Serve chilled.

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. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  5. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the capers

The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, apple, nuts, pepper, olive):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, apple, nuts, pepper, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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