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Salad

Swiss Salad

A salad of cold chicken, cucumber, peas, walnuts, dressed with French dressing and garnished with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Swiss Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the cold chicken, diced cucumber, small peas, and chopped walnut pieces.

  2. Moisten the mixture with French dressing.

Shape and serve

  1. Mold the salad in a dish.

  2. Garnish with mayonnaise dressing.

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. Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cucumber + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Chicken + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,528 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the main body of the salad as its protein.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft ingredients.
French dressing
Moistens the mixture so the salad holds together and stays juicy.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and moisture.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender bite.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cucumber, walnut, meat):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cucumber, walnut, meat. 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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