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Swiss Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of shredded lettuce, celery, beetroot, cold chicken, aspic jelly, mayonnaise, whipped cream, egg white rings, beetroot rings, and truffle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Swiss Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Prepare finely shredded lettuce, celery, and beetroot in a border mold.

  2. Add seasoning and aspic jelly to set it.

  3. Once firm, turn out onto a dish.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the white portions of the cold fowl into small shreds and pile in the center of the dish.

  2. Pour thick mayonnaise mixed with whipped cream over the chicken to cover it.

  3. Garnish the top with thin rings of egg whites and rings of beetroot.

  4. Sprinkle finely chopped truffle over the top and serve.

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. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + beetroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Celery + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,863 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Aspic jelly
Sets the shredded vegetables into a firm border that holds its shape when turned out.
Thick mayonnaise
Adds richness and moisture, coating the chicken with a creamy dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the mayonnaise, giving the dressing a softer, airier texture.
Cold fowl
Provides the main protein, shredded so it sits softly over the base.

The step that matters

Setting the aspic border. Aspic must be fully firm before turning out; if it is still soft, the mold will collapse or tear. Chilling long enough lets the gelatin set completely, so the shredded vegetables hold their shape.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, beetroot, cream, egg, truffle):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, beetroot, cream, egg, truffle. 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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