Name: Chicken Mayonnaise
Ingredients: Lettuce leaves; Cold boiled chicken (preferably white meat); Mayonnaise; Stuffed olives

Why it works: Lettuce and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chicken Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Lettuce leaves
Cold boiled chicken (preferably white meat)
Mayonnaise
Stuffed olives

Directions

Cover a platter with lettuce leaves.
Lay slices of cold boiled chicken on the lettuce.
Thickly cover the chicken with mayonnaise.
Cut stuffed olives in halves and lay them on the mayonnaise.

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.

Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,888 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).
Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Meat + olivetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,485 recipes

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