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Chicken Salad

A salad of cubed cooked chicken mixed with vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, celery, and mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin, fat, and bones from the chicken and cut it into cubes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chicken with vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper. Stir well and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

  3. Wash the celery in cold water. Refrigerate the celery with ice on top.

Assemble and serve

  1. At serving time, remove the ice and drain the celery.

  2. Mix the celery with the marinated chicken.

  3. Add the mayonnaise 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.

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Vinegar + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad and carries the flavor of the marinade.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the chicken and seasons it during marinating.
Celery
Contributes crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the salad and moistens it.

The step that matters

Chilling the celery with ice. Keeping celery cold and crisp until serving preserves its crunch, since warmth softens its cell structure and makes the salad limp.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, 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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