Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken or fowl; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon dried thyme or summer savory; A few bits of butter; Flour for thickening; Gravy from boiling chicken; Suet crust for covering

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

Parboil the chicken in enough water to cover it until tender.
Remove the chicken from the pot and cut it into pieces, discarding thick skin.

Assemble and cover

In a deep dish, layer the chicken pieces with hearts and liver, seasoning with salt, pepper, thyme, and butter.
Make gravy with the boiling liquid, thicken it with flour, and pour it over the chicken.
Cover the dish with a suet crust.

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.

Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + thymetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,173 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Thyme + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,721 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the main protein; parboiling makes it tender before it is layered and covered.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that binds and moistens the filling.
Suet crust: Forms a rich, sealed topping that traps steam and moisture over the chicken.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the chicken layers, improving flavour and mouthfeel.