Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: white meat of cooked chicken, cut into small bits; dark meat of cooked chicken (optional), cut into small bits; celery, chopped finely; 2 hard boiled egg yolks; ½ teaspoon mustard; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon oil; ⅓ cup vinegar; a little cream

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

Cut the white meat of cooked chicken into small bits, the size of peas.
If desired, cut the dark meat of cooked chicken into small bits.
Chop the celery nearly as small as the chicken.
In a bowl, rub the yolks of hard boiled eggs smooth.
Add mustard, coarse sea salt, oil, and vinegar to the egg yolks and mix well.
Combine the chicken and celery in a large bowl.
Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture, adding a little cream.
Serve immediately after adding the 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.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,192 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together855 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 (meat, chicken, egg, mustard, vinegar, cream):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Garlicfits about as well
Celerythe original

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