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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, and a dressing of olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the chicken and celery

  1. Boil the fowls with enough salt to make them palatable.

  2. Once cold, cut the meat from the bones into pieces about ¼ inch in size.

  3. Cut the white part of the celery in the same way.

  4. Mix the chicken and celery and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks with olive oil to a paste, then add vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt, mixing thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Do not pour the dressing over the salad until half an hour before serving to prevent wilting.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the olive oil to form a thick, creamy dressing.
Olive oil
Adds richness and fat that gives the dressing body and smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the rich yolks and oil.
French mustard
Helps bind the dressing and adds sharp flavour that supports the emulsion.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Dressing the salad too early. Salt and acid draw water out of celery, so it wilts and turns limp. Holding the dressing until shortly before serving keeps the celery crisp.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, mustard, egg, vinegar, 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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