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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, hard‑boiled eggs, cabbage, celery, and a dressing of butter, sugar, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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

  1. Boil the chickens until tender.

  2. Chop the chicken into small pieces.

Assemble and dress

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, chopped cabbage, chopped celery, and the whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and mix with butter, sugar, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour the dressing over the salad and stir well.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Chickens
Provides the main protein and body of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg whites add bulk and the mashed yolks make a creamy base for the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, celery, butter, sugar, 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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