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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of diced chicken and celery dressed with a thick egg yolk mustard vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Combine diced chicken and celery in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix raw and hard boiled egg yolks with mustard, stirring from left to right.

  2. Gradually add olive oil, mixing until you have about 1 cup.

  3. Squeeze in lemon juice and add more olive oil little by little.

  4. Stir in vinegar, salt, and white pepper to taste.

  5. The dressing should be thick enough to hold a spoon upright.

Serve

  1. Add dressing to salad just before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw and hard boiled egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the dressing richness and body.
Dry mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps keep the oil and vinegar blended together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the fat in the dressing.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the salad and carries the dressing.

The step that matters

Add the oil gradually to the yolks. Oil must be whisked in slowly so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the dressing to split and stay thin and greasy instead of thick.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, egg, mustard, olive, lemon, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, egg, mustard, olive, lemon, vinegar. 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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