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Salad

Dressing for Chicken Salad

A dressing made from egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegar, and spices, mixed with chopped chicken and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Dressing for 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 ↓

Dressing for Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cook the chickens and let them cool.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed egg yolks and beaten raw egg.

  2. Add mustard, red pepper, salad oil, vinegar, and salt to the egg mixture. Mix well until smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. Chop the cooled chickens and celery, then combine with the 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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a smooth, thick body.
Raw egg
Adds body and helps bind the dressing together.
Salad oil
Provides fat for a rich, smooth dressing texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Mix the dressing until smooth. Oil must be fully incorporated into the egg mixture to form a stable emulsion. If it is poorly mixed, the dressing can separate and look greasy rather than smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

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

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

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