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Salad

Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of shredded boiled chicken, egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, and chopped celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred the boiled chickens into bite-sized pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt until smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the shredded chicken and chopped celery to the mixture.

  2. Toss everything together until well combined.

  3. Serve chilled.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the vinegar and mustard to form a smooth, creamy dressing that coats the chicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps bind the yolks into a smooth dressing.
Boiled chickens
Provide the main body of the salad as shredded meat.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and dressing.

The step that matters

Mix the yolk dressing until smooth. If the yolks are not fully broken down with the vinegar and mustard, they stay lumpy and the dressing will not coat the chicken evenly.

Swap the celery

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

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

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