Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A salad of chopped boiled chicken, turkey, or veal served on crisp lettuce with a dressing of egg yolks, mustard, cayenne, salt, oil, and vinegar.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard 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

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken, turkey, or veal, then remove the skin and gristle, and chop the meat finely.

  2. Quarter the heads of lettuce and place them in water with ice to crisp.

  3. If using celery, sliver it finely and place it in ice water.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt, and stir with a fork.

  2. While stirring, gradually add the sweet oil and a little vinegar until well mixed.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix half of the dressing with the chopped meat using a spoon, then add more vinegar to taste.

  2. Arrange the meat mixture in the center of a flat dish.

  3. Dry the lettuce with a napkin and place it neatly around the meat.

  4. Drizzle the remaining dressing over the lettuce.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + peppertop 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing that coats the meat.
Sweet oil
Provides richness and a silky texture by forming the body of the dressing.
Chicken, turkey, or veal
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and substance.
Mixed mustard
Helps hold the oil and yolk emulsion together and adds sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the oil while stirring. Oil must be added slowly while whisking so the egg yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the dressing to separate and become greasy rather than smooth and thick.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lettuce, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar):

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

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

More chicken salad recipes

Dressing 31Sandwich 8with Mayonnaise 6Cream Cheese 5Moulded 5Chinese 4 See all 638 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes