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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of finely chopped chicken, eggs, celery, and a dressing of lemon, butter, oil, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the chicken finely and place in a bowl.

  2. Add the lemon juice, chopped egg whites, and mashed egg yolks.

  3. Moisten with melted butter and sweet oil.

  4. Stir in mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and cream.

  5. Add the chopped celery and enough vinegar to moisten the mixture.

Chill and serve

  1. Mix well and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture when the yolks are mashed into the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the salad a smoother mouthfeel.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, mild flavor that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the eggs and fat.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Chill for at least one hour. Chilling lets the flavors meld and the moisture from the dressing settle into the chopped chicken and celery. Serving too soon can leave the salad tasting flat and wet.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, lemon, egg, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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