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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken mixed with mustard, egg yolks, sweet oil, vinegar, celery, and lettuce.

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

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine mustard, mashed hard-boiled yolks, and beaten raw yolks.

  2. Add pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Slowly mix in sweet oil and vinegar.

Assemble the salad

  1. Fold in chopped celery and lettuce.

  2. Finally, add the shredded chicken and mix gently.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, creamy dressing.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add body and richness to the dressing as they blend in smoothly.
Sweet oil
Provides fat and silky texture, carrying flavor through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil.
Breast of chicken
Supplies the main protein, with shredded pieces absorbing dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly mix in sweet oil and vinegar. Adding oil gradually to the egg yolk and mustard lets the emulsion form. Pouring too fast can break it, leaving the dressing greasy and separated instead of creamy.

Swap the celery

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

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

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