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Chicken Salad

A cold chicken salad with mustard, egg yolk, vinegar, oil, celery, pickle, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

  1. Chop the cold boiled chicken into a dish after removing the skin.

  2. Cover the chopped chicken with a towel dipped in cold water to keep it moist.

  3. Cut the celery and dry it between clean cloths.

Make the dressing

  1. In a large dish, combine the mustard and raw egg yolk and beat well for 10 minutes.

  2. Slowly add the vinegar to the mustard mixture while stirring.

  3. Gradually add the oil drop by drop while continuously stirring.

  4. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth and stir in the vinegar.

  5. Combine the egg yolk mixture with the mustard and oil, stirring lightly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the chopped chicken, celery, yellow pickle, and stale bread crumbs.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Pour the dressing over the 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable dressing.
Oil
Forms the rich body of the dressing as it emulsifies into the yolks.
Mustard
Helps hold the emulsion together and adds a sharp flavour.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add creaminess and body to the dressing.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and thicken the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and freshness to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop while stirring. Oil added too quickly cannot be absorbed by the egg yolk and mustard, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns greasy and separated. Slow addition lets tiny oil droplets disperse and stay suspended.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mustard, egg, vinegar, bread, pepper. 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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