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Chicken Salad

A salad made from boiled chicken, lettuce, optional celery, dressed with vinegar and dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until well cooked.

  2. Remove the skin from the chickens.

  3. Chop the meat finely, ensuring all gristle and sinews are removed.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Quarter the lettuce.

  2. Wash the lettuce thoroughly.

  3. Soak the lettuce in ice water for 2-3 hours to crisp.

  4. If using celery, split it finely.

  5. Soak the celery in ice water for 2-3 hours.

  6. Wipe the lettuce or celery dry.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the chicken with dressing and a little vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Arrange the lettuce or celery around the dish.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provides the cooked meat that forms the body of the salad.
Tennis-ball lettuce
Adds crisp texture and fresh leaves for arranging around the dish.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly savory bite when used.

The step that matters

Remove all gristle and sinews while chopping the chicken. Gristle and sinews are tough and chewy when cooked and do not soften much with cooking, so missing them leaves unpleasant bites in the finely chopped salad.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, 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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