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Chicken Salad

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 and remove all fat, gristle, and skin.

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

  3. Mix the chicken with the celery.

  4. Set the mixture in a cool place, like the refrigerator.

Dress and serve

  1. Prepare a mayonnaise dressing.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery, tossing to mix thoroughly.

  3. Set the salad in a cool place until ready to serve.

  4. 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
Forms the main body of the salad and supplies its meaty texture and flavor.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, crunchy contrast to the soft chicken.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture, binding the chicken and celery and giving the salad its richness.

The step that matters

Mince the chicken without hashing it. Cutting the chicken into small pieces keeps distinct, tender bites, while overworking it breaks the meat into a paste-like texture. Chilling the mixture afterward helps it hold together and keeps it safe.

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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