Name: Suffolk Salad
Ingredients: tender lettuces; lean ham; hard-boiled eggs; English salad sauce; cold chicken (optional)

Why it works: Ham and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Suffolk Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Shred the lettuces and mince the ham and hard-boiled eggs.
Layer the shredded lettuces, minced ham, and minced egg yolks in a salad bowl.
Dress the salad with English salad sauce just before serving.
If desired, add thin slices of cold chicken to the salad.

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.

Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Lettuce + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,421 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,314 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).