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Chicken Salad

A salad of sliced chicken and celery dressed with a butter, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Cook the chicken until tender and slice it thinly.

  2. Prepare the celery in the same way.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper, and heat gently.

  2. Once the butter is melted, add it alternately with the vinegar to the mixture, stirring continuously to prevent the eggs from curdling.

  3. Cool the mixture before pouring it over the chicken and celery.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + mustardtop 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook gently, giving it a creamy, emulsified body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping make the dressing smooth and creamy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Chicken breasts
Provide the main protein and meaty texture of the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the butter alternately with the vinegar while stirring. Eggs can curdle if they get too hot or are heated too fast. Stirring constantly and adding the liquids gradually keeps the heat even and lets the mixture thicken smoothly instead of scrambling.

Swap the celery

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

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

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