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Salad

Mock Chicken Salad

A salad made with diced pork, celery, olives, capers, red pepper, mayonnaise, and a vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mock Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the diced pork and diced celery.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, salt, and vinegar to create the dressing.

  3. Pour the dressing over the pork and celery mixture and mix well.

  4. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the chopped olives, capers, and chopped red pepper to the salad.

  2. Mix in the mayonnaise and place the salad in a bowl.

  3. Pour the remaining dressing over the salad and garnish with lettuce leaves.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  5. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fresh pork
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft pork.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.
Capers
Adds a sharp, salty bite that stands out against the mild pork.
Olives
Adds salty, briny flavour and a savoury note.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, vinegar, olive, capers, pepper, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, vinegar, olive, capers, pepper, lettuce. 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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