Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 2 cooked chickens, white meat chopped fine; 2-3 branches of celery, chopped; 2 heads of lettuce, chopped; 6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; Salt to taste; 1 bottle of salad cream; Vinegar to taste

Why it works: Celery and lettuce 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

In a large bowl, combine the chopped chicken, celery, lettuce, and hard-boiled eggs.
Add salt and salad cream, mixing well.
Adjust seasoning with vinegar to taste.

Serve

Garnish with green leaves before serving.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 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.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
Salad cream: Supplies moisture and a creamy, tangy dressing that binds the salad.
Celery: Adds a crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and eggs.
Lettuce: Adds fresh, crisp bulk and a light texture to the salad.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, celery, egg, cream, vinegar):

Mustardfits better
Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, celery, egg, cream, vinegar. 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.