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Salad

Chrysanthemum Salad for Fall

A salad of shredded chicken, celery, pecans, grapes, and orange chrysanthemum slices served on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chrysanthemum Salad for Fall

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine shredded chicken, chopped celery, and pecans to make the chicken salad.

  2. Cut the orange peels into quarters, leaving them attached at the bottom.

  3. Slice the orange sections into small strips to create a chrysanthemum shape.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the center of the orange with the chicken salad and top with grapes.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce for garnish.

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.

  1. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Pecans + lettucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Orange + celerytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Orange + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the protein and bulk of the chicken salad filling.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, mild texture to the chicken salad.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor to the chicken salad.
Oranges
Serve as edible cups whose cut peels open into the chrysanthemum shape.

The step that matters

Cutting the orange peels into quarters. Cut only partway down and leave the quarters attached at the bottom so they fan out like petals. Cutting through the base separates the petals and the shape collapses.

Swap the pecans

The recipe marks pecans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, grape, chicken, celery, lettuce):

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, grape, chicken, celery, 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.

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