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Salad

Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of chopped chicken, apples, pickles, celery, pecans, and hard‑boiled eggs dressed in a mustard‑vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Prepare the salad

  1. Chop the chicken, pecans, apples, pickles, and celery very fine.

  2. Boil the eggs hard.

  3. Cut the boiled eggs into small squares.

  4. Set aside half of the eggs for the salad and half for decoration.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, mix sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture well with the 2 eggs.

  3. Add vinegar, water, and butter to the mixture.

  4. Stir thoroughly.

  5. Place the dressing in a double boiler and cook until it thickens.

Combine and serve

  1. Once the dressing is cold, mix it with the salad ingredients.

  2. Serve.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dressing and set when cooked, giving body and richness to the salad.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a smooth, spreadable body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing rich and smooth.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty aroma to the chopped salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing in the double boiler. Egg and flour thickening needs gentle, indirect heat. Too much heat can scramble the eggs into lumps, so stir steadily until the dressing thickens and then let it cool fully before mixing.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, apple, egg, sugar, mustard, vinegar. 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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