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Chicken Salad

A salad made with boiled chicken, eggs, celery, cucumbers, capers, olives, and a dressing of butter, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 the chicken

  1. Joint the chickens and cover them with boiling water.

  2. Simmer until tender, then let them cool in the broth to keep the meat juicy.

  3. The day before serving, cut the chicken into pieces about 1 inch square and ¼ inch thick.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, cream the butter with the yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Gradually add the salad oil, mustard, powdered sugar, salt, black pepper, cayenne, uncooked egg yolks, and vinegar.

Assemble the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the chopped celery, sliced cucumbers, and chopped egg whites.

  2. Add the chicken and dressing, mixing thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

  3. Adjust the vinegar to taste as needed.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the salad; cooking in broth and cooling in it keeps the meat moist.
Fresh egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, smooth dressing that clings to the meat.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Cream with butter to add richness and a smooth, stable base for the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and mouthfeel, and carries the flavour of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the eggs and oil.
Celery
Adds crunch and fresh, clean texture to the salad.

The step that matters

Gradually add the salad oil and vinegar to the egg-yolk base. Adding oil slowly to the yolks lets them emulsify it into a stable, thick dressing; adding it all at once can cause it to separate and turn greasy.

Swap the celery

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

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

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