Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: meat of 1 cold boiled chicken; 1 bunch of celery; whites of 6 hard boiled eggs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 tablespoon mustard; ½ cup vinegar

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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

Chop the chicken, celery, and egg whites moderately fine.
Mash the egg yolks in a bowl.

Make the dressing and combine

Add melted butter, sugar, mustard, and vinegar to the mashed yolks. Mix all ingredients well together.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,192 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together855 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the main body and substance of the salad.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and egg.
Hard boiled eggs: Egg whites add body and the mashed yolks bind the dressing.
Melted butter: Adds richness and helps the mashed yolk dressing blend smoothly.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the dressing.

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Garlicfits about as well
Celerythe original

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