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
Boil the hen-chicken until tender, then let it cool.
Cut the meat into pieces about 1 inch in size.
Keep the cleaned celery in cold water until ready to cut.
Make the dressing
Mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smoothly in a bowl.
Mix in the salt, mustard, olive oil, soy sauce, and vinegar.
Assemble and serve
Cut the celery into ½ inch pieces and mix with the chicken.
Shape the mixture with a wooden spoon and garnish with celery leaves and slices of hard-boiled eggs.
Serve with a boxwood spoon and fork.
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.
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Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,169 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,950 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,888 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).
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Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,667 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hen-chicken
- Provides the main body of the salad, cooked until tender and then cut into pieces.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Mashed yolks form a smooth, rich base that binds the dressing.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the dressing.
- Mustard
- Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the richness.
- Celery
- Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
The step that matters
Mash the yolks smoothly before mixing in the liquids. Yolks blended with oil and acid form an emulsion only when they are fully smooth. Lumps of yolk stay dry and separate, leaving the dressing grainy and uneven over the chicken.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, mustard, olive, sauce, vinegar):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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.
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