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Chicken Salad

A salad made with chopped chicken, celery, egg yolks, vinegar, flour, sugar, salt, mustard, oil, and cream.

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 chickens and celery into coarse pieces.

  2. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs into a fine powder.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the powdered yolks with salt, mustard, and oil until well combined.

  2. Add the cream to the mixture and stir well.

  3. Finally, mix in the vinegar.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 gives it substance.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh crunch to the salad.
Egg yolks
Their lecithin helps oil and cream blend into a smooth, stable dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and richness and carries flavour through the dressing.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness.

The step that matters

Mix the powdered yolks with the oil until well combined. Egg yolk lecithin helps tiny oil droplets disperse evenly, so the dressing stays smooth. If the yolks are not fully powdered and blended, the oil can separate and the dressing turns greasy and uneven.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, vinegar, flour, sugar, mustard, cream. 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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