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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken, celery, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

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 chicken and celery

  1. Boil the chicken until cooked through, then remove and let cool.

  2. Chop the celery finely and mix it with the chicken meat, adding pepper and salt to taste.

Make and add the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks and mix in mustard, vinegar, oil, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Add just enough of the chicken broth to the dressing to moisten it nicely.

  3. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture when ready to serve.

  4. Garnish with delicate leaves of celery or substitute with white-heart lettuce.

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 + 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. Pepper + mustardtop 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the salad, with meat that is cooked and then cooled before mixing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the dressing, they add richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Oil
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, helping it emulsify with the mashed yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps bind the dressing together.

The step that matters

Add just enough of the chicken broth to the dressing. Too much liquid thins the dressing and makes the salad watery, so add it gradually until the dressing is moist but still thick enough to coat the chicken and celery.

Swap the celery

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

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

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