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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken, celery, and a dressing of egg yolks, butter, sugar, mustard, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix egg yolks, melted butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper until smooth.

  2. Add boiling vinegar and stir with a silver spoon until thick.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in sweet cream.

Prepare the chicken and celery

  1. Boil chicken until tender, remove skin and bones, and shred the meat.

  2. Chop celery into small pieces with a silver knife.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix shredded chicken and celery, then stir in the dressing, using twice as much celery as chicken.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and bind it into a smooth, rich emulsion.
Melted butter
Adds richness and silkiness to the dressing.
Boiling vinegar
Adds acidity and helps the egg yolks thicken when stirred in.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and softens the tang of the dressing.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and body of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding boiling vinegar to the egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble if heated too fast. Pour the boiling vinegar in slowly while stirring constantly so the yolks thicken smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, mustard, vinegar, cream, chicken. 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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