Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: cold boiled chicken or remnants of roast chicken, cut into ½ inch cubes; French dressing; celery, washed and cut into small pieces; mayonnaise dressing; hard boiled eggs, for garnish; capers, for garnish; celery tips, for garnish

Why it works: Celery and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

cold boiled chicken or remnants of roast chicken, cut into ½ inch cubes
French dressing
celery, washed and cut into small pieces
mayonnaise dressing
hard boiled eggs, for garnish
capers, for garnish
celery tips, for garnish

Directions

Cut the cold boiled chicken or remnants of roast chicken into ½ inch cubes.
Cover the chicken with French dressing and let it stand for at least one hour.
Add an equal quantity of washed celery, cut into small pieces, chilled in ice water, drained, and dried.
Just before serving, moisten the salad with mayonnaise dressing.
Garnish with hard boiled eggs, capers, and celery tips.

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 + caperstop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chicken + caperstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together397 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Egg + caperstop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,991 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).