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Chicken Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with vinegar, water, sugar, butter, salt, mustard, red pepper, flour, and eggs, used for chicken salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, water, sugar, butter, salt, mustard, red pepper, and flour.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thick and smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow the dressing to cool, then mix it with chicken, eggs, and celery.

  2. Let it stand for about 3 hours 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.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a thick, smooth body.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the dressing when stirred into the hot mixture, adding body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that flavours the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the acidity with sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs off the heat. Eggs can scramble and turn lumpy if they meet very hot liquid. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring them in, and stirring steadily, keeps the dressing smooth while the eggs add body.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, butter, pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, butter, pepper, flour, egg. 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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