Name: Dressing for Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 4 chickens; 12 egg yolks; 1 raw egg; ½ cup mustard; 4 teaspoons red pepper; 1 cup salad oil; 1 cup vinegar; 1 quart cut celery; coarse sea salt to taste

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 ↓

Dressing for Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Mash the yolks of 12 eggs very smooth.
Beat 1 raw egg until light.
Combine the mashed yolks, beaten egg, mustard, red pepper, salad oil, vinegar, and salt in a bowl.
Mix well until smooth.
Add the cut celery and stir to combine.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Capersfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.