Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: cold chicken (white part only); walnuts; celery; salad dressing

Why it works: Walnut and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

cold chicken (white part only)
walnuts
celery
salad dressing

Directions

Cut the cold chicken into small pieces using a silver knife.
Chop the walnuts and celery into small pieces.
Combine equal parts of chicken, walnuts, and celery.
Mix in the salad dressing.

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.

Walnut + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chicken + walnuttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).