Name: Chicken or Turkey Salad
Ingredients: 3 boned chicken joints, cut into small pieces; 1 cup vinegar; 2 teaspoons mixed mustard; 6 chopped pickles; 4 stalks celery, chopped; 5 hard boiled eggs; 3 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons sugar

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 or Turkey Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken mixture

In a large bowl, combine the chicken pieces, vinegar, mixed mustard, chopped pickles, chopped celery, and chopped hard boiled eggs.

Make the creamy dressing

In a separate bowl, mix the yolks of the hard boiled eggs with the butter until creamy.
Add the sugar to the egg and butter mixture and mix well.

Combine

Combine the creamy mixture with the chicken mixture and stir until well combined.

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.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,192 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and richness; the yolks blend into the creamy mixture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the yolks form a smooth, creamy base.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and mustard.
Mixed mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness.

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, mustard, egg, butter, sugar. 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.