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Chicken Salad

A mayonnaise-based salad with shredded chicken, aspic jelly, olives, anchovies, gherkins, and remoulade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Olive and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,580 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly coating

  1. In a bowl, combine mayonnaise and aspic jelly; beat until smooth.

  2. Line individual patty pans with the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill with shredded chicken dressed in Remoulade sauce and add sliced olives.

  2. Cover with remaining mixture and let stand.

  3. Turn out onto a bed of shredded lettuce.

  4. Garnish with anchovies and gherkins.

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. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Sauce + lettucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy body that carries the flavour of the filling.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a firm, glossy layer that holds the chicken filling together.
Shredded chicken
Provides the main bulk and savoury meaty texture of the salad.
Sliced olives
Contribute salty, briny flavour and a contrasting texture to the chicken.

The step that matters

Let the aspic set before turning out. Aspic is a gelatin-based jelly that only firms when fully chilled and set. If it is turned out too early it will be soft and may tear or slump, so the layers hold their shape only after they have had time to set.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, sauce, olive):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, sauce, olive. 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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