Name: Minced Chicken
Ingredients: meat from 1 chicken; scraps of cold roast or soup meat; 2 teaspoons mustard; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; ⅓ cup vinegar; 1 cup stock; 1 cup chopped celery; lettuce for serving

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Grind the meat from the chicken with the cold roast or soup meat.
Season the mixture with mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, stock, and chopped celery.
Serve the minced chicken on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken meat: Provides the main protein and body of the minced mixture.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild vegetable bite.
Stock: Adds moisture and savory flavor to the minced mixture.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the meat.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, mustard, pepper, vinegar, lettuce):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, mustard, pepper, vinegar, lettuce. 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.