Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups cold boiled chicken breast, cut into ½ inch cubes; 4 cups tender celery hearts, cut into ½ inch pieces; 1 cup English walnut meats, broken into pieces; Boiled Salad Dressing; Hard boiled eggs, for garnish; Curled celery, for garnish

Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

2 cups cold boiled chicken breast, cut into ½ inch cubes
4 cups tender celery hearts, cut into ½ inch pieces
1 cup English walnut meats, broken into pieces
Boiled Salad Dressing
Hard boiled eggs, for garnish
Curled celery, for garnish

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cold boiled chicken breast into ½ inch cubes.
Add the tender celery hearts and walnut meats to the chicken and mix thoroughly.

Serve

Serve with Boiled Salad Dressing.
Garnish with hard boiled eggs and curled celery.

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.

Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chicken + walnuttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breast: Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery hearts: Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
English walnut meats: Contribute a crunchy texture and a rich, nutty flavour.