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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of minced chicken mixed with celery and mayonnaise, garnished with celery tips, hard‑boiled eggs, lettuce, beets or capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, then remove all fat, gristle, and skin.

  2. Mince the chicken meat into small pieces, but do not hash it.

Combine and chill

  1. Mix the chicken with the celery thoroughly and refrigerate.

  2. Prepare the mayonnaise dressing.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, pour the dressing over the chicken and celery, tossing to mix well.

  2. Garnish with celery tips, cold hard-boiled eggs, lettuce leaves, cold boiled beets, or capers.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad, shredded into small pieces for a tender bite.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh crunch that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the chicken and celery and keeping the salad creamy.

The step that matters

Mincing the chicken without hashing it. Cutting the meat into small pieces keeps its fibres intact, so the salad stays tender and distinct rather than mushy. Overworking breaks the meat down and makes it pasty.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, lettuce, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, lettuce, capers. 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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