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Chicken Salad

A salad of chopped chicken, celery, eggs, and a vinaigrette made with vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and butter.

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

Make the dressing

  1. Bring the vinegar to a boil.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the raw eggs, then stir them into the boiling vinegar.

  3. Remove from heat when the mixture thickens.

  4. Add the mustard, mashed yolks of the hard-boiled eggs, melted butter, pepper, and salt.

  5. Slowly whisk in the olive oil.

Assemble

  1. Pour the dressing over the chopped chicken, celery, and chopped whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw eggs
Thicken the vinegar mixture as they cook and bind the dressing together.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, emulsifying into the dressing for a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs and oil.
Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and substance.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks enrich the dressing and whites add texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten raw eggs into the boiling vinegar. Adding the eggs too quickly, or without stirring, can scramble them into lumps instead of letting them thicken smoothly. Removing the mixture from heat as soon as it thickens prevents it from overcooking and curdling.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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