Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 2 large cooked chickens, white meat only, cut into small pieces; 2 cups olive oil; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon red pepper; 2 tablespoons mustard mixed with a little vinegar; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed; 2 raw egg yolks; 2/3 quart celery, chopped; Lettuce leaves for serving

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

2 large cooked chickens, white meat only, cut into small pieces
2 cups olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon red pepper
2 tablespoons mustard mixed with a little vinegar
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed
2 raw egg yolks
2/3 quart celery, chopped
Lettuce leaves for serving

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mashed yolks of 8 hard-boiled eggs, olive oil, salt, red pepper, mustard mixture, and raw egg yolks.
Mix the ingredients thoroughly, adjusting salt and pepper to taste.
In a separate bowl, combine the chicken pieces and chopped celery.
Arrange the chicken and celery mixture on lettuce leaves.
Serve with mayonnaise dressing.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,888 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Garlicfits better
Capersfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, olive, pepper, mustard, vinegar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.