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Chicken Salad

Chicken salad made with boiled chicken, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, celery, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, about 1 to 5 hours depending on age.

  2. Remove the chicken from the pot and let it cool.

  3. Cut the chicken into 1-inch pieces, then shred the meat into fine shreds.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded chicken with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. Chop celery and mix it into the chicken salad.

  3. Serve on a bed of lettuce.

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 + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad, giving it substance and a tender, shredded texture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, binding the shredded meat into a creamy salad.
Celery
Adds crisp crunch and a fresh contrast to the soft meat.

The step that matters

Boil the chicken until tender, then let it cool before mixing. Boiling gently until just tender keeps the meat moist, since overcooked muscle tightens and turns dry and stringy. Cooling before adding mayonnaise prevents the warm meat from melting the dressing, which can make it greasy and loose.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, celery. 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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