Name: Chicken or Turkey Salad
Ingredients: 1 pint cooked chicken or turkey, diced; Salad dressing (mayonnaise or other dressing); 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; 1 pint celery, chopped; Celery tips and olives for garnish

Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Chicken or Turkey Salad

Ingredients

1 pint cooked chicken or turkey, diced
Salad dressing (mayonnaise or other dressing)
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 pint celery, chopped
Celery tips and olives for garnish

Directions

Prepare

Chill the diced meat in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
In a bowl, mix the chilled meat with the chopped celery and chopped eggs.

Serve

Arrange the mixture on a serving plate.
Pour a generous amount of dressing over it.
Garnish with celery tips and olives.

Optional variations

Optionally, use lettuce instead of celery.
Optionally, add celery salt or seed to the dressing.

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.

Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,888 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).
Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken or turkey: Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the chopped ingredients together.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add creamy texture and body to the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch.