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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken, celery, hard‑boiled eggs, and a vinaigrette of olive oil, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Shred the white meat of the cooked chickens.

  2. Chop the celery and combine it with the chicken in a 1:2 ratio.

  3. Hard boil the eggs, then remove the yolks and mash them smooth with a silver spoon.

Make the dressing

  1. Gradually mix in the olive oil, mustard, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and sugar until smooth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Just before serving, mix the dressing with the chicken and celery.

  2. Moisten the salad with sharp vinegar and add lemon juice if desired.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

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

  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

Chicken
Provides the main body and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed smooth to form a rich, creamy base for the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying the seasonings through the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the oil into the dressing.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar and cayenne.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and moistens the salad.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the olive oil. Adding oil slowly to the mashed yolks and mustard lets it emulsify into a smooth, stable dressing. Pouring it in all at once can cause it to separate and turn greasy.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, egg, olive, mustard, pepper, sugar. 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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