Name: Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients: thin slices of bread; butter; 1 crisp lettuce leaf; mayonnaise dressing; 1 slice of cold chicken; 1 stalk of celery

Why it works: Lettuce and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

Butter the thin slices of bread.

Assemble the sandwich

Place a crisp lettuce leaf spread with mayonnaise dressing on one slice.
Add a slice of cold chicken on top of the lettuce.
Alternatively, chop the chicken and celery together finely and mix with mayonnaise.
Spread the mixture between two slices of buttered bread.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Bread + lettucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Provides the structure that holds the filling together.
Butter: Adds fat and richness and helps keep the bread from soaking up moisture from the filling.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture, richness and tang to the filling.
Chicken: Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Celery: Adds a crisp texture and fresh flavour to the chicken filling.
Lettuce: Adds a crisp, fresh texture between the filling and the bread.