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Chicken Salad

A salad of chopped chicken, celery, and a dressing of egg yolks, mustard, salt, oil, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. In a large bowl, combine the chicken and celery.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub the yolks of hard boiled eggs smooth.

Make the dressing

  1. Add mustard, coarse sea salt, oil, and vinegar to the egg yolks and mix well.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture.

  2. Add a little cream just 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White meat of chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, giving it bulk and a tender bite.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed smooth, they bind the dressing and add richness and body.
Oil
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and gives it a richer mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, mildly vegetal flavour against the soft chicken.

The step that matters

Rub the egg yolks smooth before adding the other dressing ingredients. Lumpy yolks will not blend evenly with the oil and vinegar, so the dressing can split or stay grainy instead of coating the chicken evenly.

Swap the celery

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

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

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