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Chicken Salad

Chicken salad with boiled chicken, celery, egg yolks, vinegar, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the chicken and celery

  1. Cut the chicken into regular, oblong-shaped pieces and place in a bowl. Mix in the cut celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the rubbed egg yolks, salt, pepper, and dry mustard. Stir in the raw egg yolks.

  2. Boil the vinegar and add the butter until melted. Stir the vinegar mixture into the egg yolk mixture and let it cool.

  3. If the mixture is too stiff, add sweet cream to achieve the desired consistency.

Combine and chill

  1. Combine the mixture with the chicken and celery, and keep cool until ready to serve.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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

Cold boiled chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and bulk.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the dressing, they add richness and a smooth, thick texture.
Raw egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and vinegar mixture, helping bind the dressing together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a silky mouthfeel.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, mildly vegetal flavor against the soft dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar mixture to the raw egg yolks. Raw yolks can scramble or curdle if the hot vinegar and butter mixture is poured in too quickly. Adding it slowly while stirring lets the yolks warm gradually and emulsify smoothly into the dressing.

Swap the celery

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

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

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