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Chicken Salad

Chicken salad with a vinegar and butter dressing, egg yolks, mustard, salt, celery, and heavy cream.

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

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the vinegar and butter in a saucepan, but do not let it boil.

  2. In a bowl, combine the beaten egg yolks, mustard, and salt.

  3. Slowly stir the egg mixture into the hot vinegar and butter, cooking until thickened.

  4. Allow the dressing to cool in a cool place.

Prepare the salad

  1. Mix the finely cut chicken with a little salt and set aside in a cool place.

  2. Add an equal amount of cut celery to the chicken.

  3. When ready to serve, pour the dressing over the chicken and celery, stirring well.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream, or whip part of the cream if preferred.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mustard + chickentop 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 smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the rich dressing and the chicken.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it lightens the salad and adds moisture and a soft texture.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsified dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly stir the egg mixture into the hot vinegar and butter. Egg yolks scramble if they meet heat too quickly. Adding them slowly while stirring tempers them, so the dressing thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the celery

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

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

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