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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of cooked chicken, celery, and eggs dressed with a lemon, mustard, and cayenne oil mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the raw egg yolks and oil together gradually.

  2. Boil 6 eggs hard, then chop the whites and set aside.

  3. Mix the yolk mixture with lemon juice, mustard, cayenne, and salt.

Assemble the salad

  1. Combine the chopped celery and chicken with the dressing.

  2. Add the chopped hard egg whites to the salad.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil to form a thick, creamy dressing that binds the salad.
Oil
Adds richness and fat, helping the beaten yolks form a stable emulsion.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and dressing.
Hard-boiled egg whites
Add body and mild texture, folded through the salad.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks and oil together gradually. Adding oil slowly to the yolks lets the fat disperse into tiny droplets held by the yolk's lecithin. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated dressing instead of a smooth, thick one.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, lemon, pepper, celery. 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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