Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 1 hen or fowl with white skin; 1 bunch of celery (or 2 if small); 5 hard-boiled eggs; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon mild mustard (or ½ tablespoon if very sharp); 3 tablespoons sweet olive oil; 1 teaspoon soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce; 3 tablespoons vinegar

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

1 hen or fowl with white skin
1 bunch of celery (or 2 if small)
5 hard-boiled eggs
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon mild mustard (or ½ tablespoon if very sharp)
3 tablespoons sweet olive oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons vinegar

Directions

Prepare

Boil the hen or fowl until tender, then let it cool.
Cut the meat into pieces about 1 inch in size.
Clean the celery and keep it in cold water until ready to cut.

Make the dressing

Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smoothly with a wooden spoon.
Mix in the salt, mustard, olive oil, soy sauce, and vinegar.

Assemble and serve

Cut the celery into ½ inch pieces and mix it with the chicken.
Shape the mixture with a wooden spoon and garnish with celery leaves and slices of hard-boiled eggs.
Serve the salad with the dressing poured over it.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,667 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hen or fowl: Provides the cooked meat that forms the body of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Yolks mash into a creamy base that gives the dressing richness.
Olive oil: Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour through the dressing.
Mustard: Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing so it holds together.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Celery: Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.

Swap the celery

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

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, olive, sauce, vinegar. 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.