Why it works: Chicken and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,375 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil and cut the chicken into pieces.
Chop the celery and set aside.
Hard-boil the eggs.
Separate the yolks and whites; pulverize the yolks and chop the whites.
Take the broth from boiling the chicken and reduce it by half.
Assemble
Add the reduced broth and Durkee's salad dressing to the chicken and celery.
Mix in the pulverized yolks and chopped whites.
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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Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,375 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Celery + eggtop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,334 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main body of the salad, and its cooking broth supplies flavour.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Yolks add richness and creaminess, while chopped whites add texture.
- Chicken broth
- Reduced by half to concentrate its flavour and add moisture to the salad.
- Durkee's salad dressing
- Adds moisture, tang and sweetness that bind the salad together.
- Celery
- Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly vegetal crunch.
The step that matters
Reducing the broth by half. Reducing concentrates the broth's flavour and removes excess water, so the salad stays moist rather than watery when the broth is added.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg):
- Tarragonfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg. 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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