Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken mixed with mustard, egg yolks, vinegar, oil, celery, pickle, bread crumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

  1. Remove the skin from the boiled chicken and chop the meat into a dish.

  2. Drape a towel slightly dipped in cold water over the chicken to keep it moist.

  3. Cut the celery and place it between clean cloths to dry.

Make the dressing

  1. In a large dish, combine the mustard and raw egg yolk, beating well for ten minutes.

  2. Slowly add the vinegar to the mustard mixture.

  3. Gradually add the oil, drop by drop, while stirring continuously.

  4. Stir in the rubbed hard-boiled egg yolks and the ½ teacup of vinegar into the mustard mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the chopped chicken, chopped celery, yellow pickle, and stale bread crumbs.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving.

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 + celerytop 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. Mustard + peppertop 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

Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable dressing.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together in the dressing emulsion.
Oil
Provides fat and a rich, smooth texture to the dressing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add a creamy, rich body.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the salad body and texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop while stirring. Oil added too quickly to the egg yolk and mustard cannot be absorbed, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns greasy and separated. Adding it slowly while whisking lets the yolk lecithin surround tiny oil droplets and keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mustard, egg, vinegar, bread, 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.

More chicken salad recipes

Dressing 31Sandwich 8with Mayonnaise 6Cream Cheese 5Moulded 5Chinese 4 See all 638 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes