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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of diced chicken and celery mixed with mayonnaise, served on lettuce or celery tops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Celery and lettuce 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

  1. Chop the cold, cooked chicken into even-sized pieces.

  2. Wash, scrape, and chop the tender celery stalks into small pieces.

  3. For every 2 cups of chicken, use 1 cup of celery.

  4. Marinate the chicken and keep it in a cool place until ready to serve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the chicken and celery gently with the mayonnaise dressing, reserving some for garnish.

  2. Serve the salad garnished with lettuce leaves or celery tops.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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. Meat + lettucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together579 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken meat
Provides the main body and protein of the salad.
Celery stalks
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft chicken.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the chicken and celery together with moisture.

The step that matters

Mix the chicken and celery gently with the mayonnaise dressing. Vigorous mixing breaks up the chicken and celery and can turn the salad mushy. Gentle folding keeps the pieces intact, so the texture stays firm and the dressing coats rather than smears.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, celery. 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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Dressing 31Sandwich 8with Mayonnaise 6Cream Cheese 5Moulded 5Chinese 4 See all 638 →

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