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Dessert

Chicken Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with chicken stock, flour, vinegar, butter, egg yolks, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, pepper, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the flour, salt, cayenne pepper, and pepper.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg yolks, melted butter, vinegar, and chicken stock.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  4. Beat the mixture with a Dover egg beater until smooth.

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.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it body.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the mixture, adding richness and creaminess.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.
Chicken stock
Supplies liquid and savory flavor to the dressing base.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Egg yolks can scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops, leaving lumps. Constant stirring and gentle heat let the starch and yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, vinegar, butter, egg, pepper, cream. 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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