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Chicken and Snap Pea Wild Rice Salad

"I learned how to harvest wild rice last fall and enjoy recipes to use the nutritious grass. This is a filling, flavorful dish."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Safflower and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 15 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

10 servings
Prep25 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Rinse the wild rice in a strainer. Bring the 6 cups water to a boil in a saucepan, add the rice and a pinch of the salt, then reduce to a gentle simmer and cover.

  2. Simmer the rice for about 20 minutes, or longer if needed, until the grains are tender and just split. Drain any excess water and spread the rice on a tray to cool.

  3. While the rice cools, bring a pan of boiling water to a boil. Add the sugar snap peas and cook for 1 minute, then drain and rinse under cold water. Slice them in half on the diagonal.

  4. Whisk the tarragon vinegar, Dijon mustard, white sugar, remaining salt, minced garlic, dried tarragon, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes in a large bowl.

  5. Slowly whisk in the safflower oil until the dressing is smooth and slightly thickened.

  6. Add the cooled wild rice, cubed cooked chicken, sliced celery, sliced green onion and chopped parsley to the dressing. Toss well to coat.

  7. Gently fold in the blanched sugar snap peas. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes so the flavors blend.

  8. Just before serving, toss the salad again, then sprinkle with the toasted slivered almonds. To toast the almonds, cook them in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes until fragrant and golden.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Safflower + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Garlic + chickentop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the safflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wild rice, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, sugar, garlic, pepper):

  1. Celerybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Dillbetter flavor fit
  4. Safflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wild rice, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, sugar, garlic, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).