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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, and a creamy mustard‑olive oil dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 chicken until tender, then let it cool.

  2. Remove the skin, bones, and gristle, and cut the meat into pieces without chopping.

  3. Add salt and the chopped celery to the chicken and toss with a fork until light.

  4. Refrigerate the chicken mixture until the dressing is ready.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, mix the egg yolks, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the olive oil, one tablespoon at a time, while beating with an egg beater.

  3. Just before adding the last tablespoon of oil, mix in the lemon juice until the dressing is creamy.

Assemble the salad

  1. Spread the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture.

  2. If desired, add chopped capers and olives to 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.

  1. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 into the dressing, giving it a creamy, thick texture.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the emulsified dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps it stay creamy.
Chicken
Forms the main protein of the salad, providing bulk and savory flavor.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mildly savory crunch to the chicken.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil added too quickly to the egg yolks cannot be absorbed, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns greasy and separated. Adding it slowly while beating keeps the dressing smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, egg, sugar, pepper, olive, lemon. 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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