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Chicken Salad

A chicken salad made with eggs, vinegar, butter, olive oil, mustard, pepper, salt, chicken, celery, and cabbage.

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

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add ½ cup of vinegar and melted butter.

  3. Place the vessel in a pot of boiling water and stir until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and add the remaining ½ cup of vinegar, pepper, mustard, and olive oil.

Assemble the salad

  1. Combine with equal amounts of chicken, celery, and cabbage.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + chickentop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken into a custard-like dressing as they are gently heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat for smoothness and mouthfeel in the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture over boiling water until thick. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so the dressing needs steady, gentle heat and constant stirring.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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