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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of diced cooked chicken and celery tossed with a dressing of oil, salt, paprika, vinegar, olives, capers, and mayonnaise.

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

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dice the cooked chicken and celery.

  2. In a bowl, combine the oil, salt, paprika, and vinegar to make the dressing.

Combine and chill

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery, mix well, and refrigerate.

  2. Just before serving, add the chopped olives, capers, and mayonnaise dressing, and mix again.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a salad bowl, pour the remaining dressing over it, and garnish with lettuce leaves.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its main protein texture.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and freshness that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds richness and moisture, binding the salad with fat and creaminess.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds fat, coating the chicken and celery.

The step that matters

Dressing the chicken before refrigerating. Chicken and celery absorb the dressing as they chill, so seasoning them while still warm helps flavour penetrate. Adding the delicate olives, capers, and mayonnaise just before serving keeps their texture and appearance fresh.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, vinegar, olive, capers, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, olive, capers, lettuce. 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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