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Salad

Mayonnaise of Chicken

A chilled chicken salad dressed with a mayonnaise-based sauce.

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

Mayonnaise of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and celery

  1. Chop the white meat of the boiled chicken and the celery separately, then place in a salad bowl.

  2. Sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt and refrigerate until ready.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until fine.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon olive oil, stirring vigorously.

  3. Mix in 1 teaspoon mustard, white pepper, and 2 teaspoons sugar.

  4. Whip the egg white to a froth and fold into the dressing.

  5. Gradually add vinegar, one spoonful at a time, stirring constantly until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Carefully mix the salad with the dressing using two forks.

  2. Line a serving bowl with lettuce leaves and garnish the top with chopped egg whites or cut into half-moons.

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.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  4. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Rubbed fine, they form the creamy, emulsified body of the dressing.
Egg white
Whipped to a froth, it adds lightness and airy volume to the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, helping the dressing emulsify smoothly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild vegetal flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar gradually. Vinegar added one spoonful at a time and stirred constantly lets the oil and yolk mixture emulsify. Adding it all at once can break the dressing into a thin, separated liquid.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, celery, egg, olive, mustard, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, celery, egg, olive, mustard, 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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