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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken and pork mixed with celery, walnuts, and a dressing of egg yolks, sugar, mustard, cayenne, olive oil, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 meat

  1. Boil the chicken and tenderloin pork until tender.

  2. Shred the pork.

  3. Chop enough celery to equal one-third the amount of shredded pork.

Combine the salad

  1. Mix the shredded pork, chopped celery, and shelled walnuts together thoroughly.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper, and mix thoroughly.

  2. Slowly add olive oil drop by drop while heating until it thickens to a cake batter consistency.

  3. Thin the dressing with cider vinegar to desired consistency.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and thicken the dressing into a smooth, rich body.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, forming the thick body of the dressing when emulsified.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity to brighten the dressing and thins it to the desired consistency.
Shelled english walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft meat.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and moisture to the salad.
Tenderloin pork
Forms the bulk of the salad as shredded, tender meat.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly. Oil must be added drop by drop to the egg yolks so they can emulsify it. Adding it too quickly can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing thin, greasy, and unable to thicken.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, celery, egg, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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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