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Chicken Salad

A salad made from boiled chicken, celery, hard‑boiled eggs, and a dressing of vinegar, butter, mustard, sugar, and spices.

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

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until tender, salting to taste.

  2. Once cold, cut the chickens into small pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar and butter, then heat on the stove.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs with mustard, sugar, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the vinegar mixture and stir well.

Assemble the salad

  1. Add the celery and sliced hard-boiled eggs to the chicken. Mix the ingredients thoroughly.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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

Chickens
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor to the salad.
Eggs
Add richness and body to the dressing and the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating the vinegar and butter. Heating vinegar with butter and then combining it with beaten eggs must be done gently and combined with stirring, since overheated eggs can scramble and make the dressing lumpy rather than smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, butter. 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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