Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped celery; 2 cups cooked chicken, chopped; 3 tablespoons whipped cream; Salad Dressing Stock, to moisten; 3 teaspoons salt; 1 teaspoon mustard; ¼ teaspoon pepper; Watercress (optional)

Why it works: Mustard and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 293 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine chopped celery and chicken.
Add whipped cream and Salad Dressing Stock to moisten.
In a separate bowl, mix salt, mustard, and pepper.
Add the seasoning to the salad until well seasoned.
If desired, substitute watercress for 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.

Mustard + watercresstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together293 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + watercresstop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together167 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its main substance.
Whipped cream: Adds moisture and a light, creamy texture to the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, mustard, pepper, watercress):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Celerythe original
Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, mustard, pepper, watercress. 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.