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Chicken Salad

A chilled chicken salad with celery, mayonnaise, and whipped cream, served on lettuce leaves.

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

Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. Clean and dress the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken in boiling water with the onion, bay leaf, cloves, and mace.

  3. Boil rapidly for 5 minutes, then reduce heat and cook until tender.

Cut and chill

  1. Once cold, cut the chicken into half-inch cubes, removing all fat and skin.

  2. Sprinkle lemon juice over the chicken and place on ice.

Assemble and serve

  1. When ready to serve, mix the chicken with the celery.

  2. Dust with salt and pepper.

  3. Mix mayonnaise with whipped cream to taste and pour over the salad.

  4. Serve on lettuce leaves and garnish with celery leaves and capers.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clove + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main structure and meaty texture of the salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and richness, binding the salad into a creamy dressing.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds softness and moisture.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the tender chicken.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the chicken.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly, then reduce heat to cook until tender. A short rapid boil followed by gentle cooking keeps the chicken tender. Sustained vigorous boiling toughens muscle proteins and dries the meat, so the heat must be lowered once the chicken is in the pot.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, clove, lemon, celery, cream, lettuce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, clove, lemon, celery, cream, lettuce. 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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