Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 6 eggs; ½ cup melted butter; 1 cup cream; 1 tablespoon mustard; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons sugar; 1 cup vinegar

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the eggs very light.
In a bowl, combine melted butter, cream, mustard, salt, sugar, and vinegar.
Place the dressing over hot water, stirring until it thickens like custard.
Once cooled, pour the dressing over the salad.

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.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the mustard

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

Mustardthe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, sugar, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.