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Classic Minnesota Wild Rice Salad

"Everyone really enjoys this salad; it features wild rice, chicken, and cashews along with plump juicy red grapes. Besides wild rice, the real star of this salad is the dressing that uses curry powder to provide a delicious and unique flavor. And like a lot of dishes, it is best served after sitting overnight to ensure all the flavors get a chance to know each other!!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Wild rice and water chestnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

10 servings
Prep15 min
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts, soy (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. Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir in the wild rice, cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer about 30 minutes until the grains are tender and split open.

  2. Drain off any remaining liquid, spread the rice on a sheet pan, and let it cool to room temperature.

  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, seasoned salt, soy sauce, and curry powder until smooth.

  4. Add the cooled wild rice, cubed cooked chicken, seedless red grapes, and drained sliced water chestnuts to the dressing. Toss gently until evenly coated.

  5. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, keeping the salad at or below 40°F (4°C) until serving.

  6. Just before serving, fold in the roasted salted cashews so they stay crunchy.

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. Wild rice + water chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wild rice + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Chicken + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together755 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + water chestnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Water chestnut + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wild rice, chicken, water chestnut, sauce):

  1. Pumpkinbetter flavor fit
  2. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  3. Avocadoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wild rice, chicken, water chestnut, sauce. 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).