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Chicken Salad

A salad of chopped chicken, celery, eggs, and a dressing of lemon or vinegar, mustard, butter, and olive oil.

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

Prepare

  1. Chop the chicken and celery into pieces about the size of a pea.

  2. Boil the eggs hard, then cool them.

  3. Chop the egg whites.

  4. Mash the egg yolks.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the mashed yolks with mustard, salt, and melted butter.

  2. Boil the vinegar.

  3. Stir in the beaten raw eggs until thickened but not curdled, then remove from heat.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the hard-boiled egg whites, chicken, and celery.

  2. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while mixing.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. Reserve the celery until 2 hours before serving.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad and gives it a meaty, substantial texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a creamy texture when the yolks are mashed and blended into the dressing.
Raw eggs
Thicken the dressing as their proteins set with gentle heat, binding it together.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, and emulsifies into the yolk mixture to create a smooth, creamy dressing.
Melted butter
Contributes fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the dressing.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the eggs and fats.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten raw eggs until thickened but not curdled. Raw egg proteins thicken the dressing as they gently set with heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is heated too fast, the proteins tighten and scramble, leaving lumps and a grainy texture instead of a smooth binder.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, lemon, olive, butter, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, lemon, olive, butter, 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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