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Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad is a chilled dish made with boiled chicken, eggs, ketchup, sauces, spices, onion, mashed potato, celery, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and eggs

  1. Boil the chicken until thoroughly cooked, then chop it very fine.

  2. Boil the eggs, then rub the yolks into a smooth paste.

Make the salad

  1. Mix the yolks with the tomato ketchup, mixed sauces, red pepper, black pepper, and chopped onion.

  2. Add the mashed potato and mix well.

  3. Skim off the water from the boiled chicken, then add the chopped celery.

Chill and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a flat pan and chill in the refrigerator until firm enough to cut into squares.

  2. Serve with watercress.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks form a smooth paste that binds and enriches the salad.
Mashed irish potato
Adds body and moisture, helping the mixture hold together when chilled.
Whole chicken
Provides the main bulk and meaty texture of the salad.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the yolk paste.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavour.

The step that matters

Chill until firm. The mixture must chill long enough to set, since the potato and yolks only firm up when cold. Cutting too early makes the squares crumble and lose their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, tomato, ketchup, sauce, pepper, potato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, tomato, ketchup, sauce, pepper, potato. 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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