Why it works: Endive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and mix
Ensure the salad ingredients are very dry to allow the dressing to mix well.
In a bowl, combine the diced chicken, endive, celery, and lettuce. Mix in the mayonnaise until everything is well coated.
Garnish and serve
Garnish with the yolk of the hard boiled egg and thin slices of cucumber.
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.
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Endive + lettucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together284 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,409 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Endive + cucumbertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together87 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,033 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Endive + celerytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together160 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
- Cooked chicken
- Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
- Mayonnaise
- Adds fat and creaminess, coating the vegetables and chicken to bind the salad.
- Lettuce
- Adds crisp texture and fresh body to the salad.
- Celery
- Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury flavour.
The step that matters
Drying the salad ingredients. Any surface water on the chicken, endive, celery and lettuce dilutes the mayonnaise and makes it slide off rather than coat evenly. Patting or spinning the leaves and vegetables dry lets the dressing cling and keeps the salad from becoming watery.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, endive, lettuce, egg, cucumber):
- Tarragonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, endive, lettuce, egg, cucumber. 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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