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Chicken Salad

A salad of diced chicken, celery, and egg yolk dressing with vinegar, oil, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into small square pieces and remove the skin.

  2. Wash and cut the celery into similar-sized pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and gradually add the salad oil while beating until the mixture resembles thick cream. Add the vinegar to the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the chicken and celery, then pour the egg mixture over them.

  2. Sprinkle with white pepper, salt, and cayenne, and mix thoroughly with a fork.

  3. Arrange the lettuce around the edge of the salad bowl, sprinkle capers on top, and garnish the center with celery tips.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the salad oil into a thick, creamy dressing that coats the chicken and celery.
Salad oil
Provides fat and richness, giving the dressing its smooth body and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, supplying protein and substance.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savory crunch to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the yolks. Oil must be added slowly while beating so it emulsifies into the yolks. Adding it too fast lets the oil separate, leaving a greasy, broken dressing instead of a thick, creamy one.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, egg, vinegar, capers, lettuce, cream):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, egg, vinegar, capers, lettuce, 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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