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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, hard‑boiled eggs, dressed with a vinaigrette of vinegar, butter, eggs, mustard, sugar, salt, pepper.

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

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 the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until tender, then let them cool and chop them, but not too finely.

  2. Add the finely chopped celery and sliced hard-boiled eggs to the chicken.

Make the dressing

  1. In a tin pail, combine the vinegar and place it in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter (or oil), beaten eggs, mustard, salt, sugar, and pepper until well mixed.

  3. Slowly stir the mixture into the vinegar until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the rich dressing and the sweetness of the sugar.
Butter or oil
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, coating mouthfeel in the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing so it stays smooth.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, giving the dressing a balanced sweet-sour flavour.

The step that matters

Slowly stir the mixture into the vinegar until it thickens. Adding the beaten eggs and fat too quickly can cause them to curdle or clump. Stirring slowly while the vinegar is hot lets the egg proteins set gradually into a smooth, thickened dressing.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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