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Chicken Salad

A salad made with cooked chicken, celery, eggs, mustard, vinegar, oil, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

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

  1. Season the chicken while cooking.

  2. Chop the chicken and celery by hand.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  2. Slowly beat the oil into the egg mixture.

  3. Mix all ingredients except the cream in an earthen dish.

  4. Cook on the stove until thick like pound cake.

  5. Let it cool, then stir in the cream.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the chicken and celery an hour 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crunch and fresh texture against the soft dressing.
Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it body and structure.
Vegetable oil
Adds fat and richness, emulsified into the beaten eggs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the cooled dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture on the stove until thick. Egg proteins set and thicken as they heat. Too much heat scrambles them into lumps, while too little leaves the dressing thin and runny.

Swap the celery

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

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

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