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Chicken Salad

A salad made from shredded chicken or turkey mixed with egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, salt, and optional celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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. Boil the chickens or turkey until cooked, then shred the meat.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until smooth.

Make the dressing

  1. Stir in the strong vinegar, butter, mustard, black and red pepper, and salt.

  2. Place the bowl over boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and add ½ pint of vinegar.

Finish

  1. If celery is unavailable, substitute with cabbage and celery seed.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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
Thicken the dressing as they cook and bind it into a smooth, creamy emulsion.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the dressing.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Thickening over boiling water. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stirring constantly over simmering water keeps the heat even so the dressing becomes smooth.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper):

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

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

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