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Chicken Salad

A salad of diced chicken, egg whites, celery, cabbage, and a butter-sugar-mustard dressing, garnished with lettuce and olives.

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

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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 and vegetables

  1. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Chop the whites of the hard boiled eggs moderately fine.

  3. Cut the chicken into small pieces.

  4. Measure the chicken and add equal parts chopped celery and cabbage.

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks of the eggs finely, then mix in the butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Gradually beat in the vinegar.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the chicken, egg whites, celery, and cabbage in a bowl.

  2. Pour the dressing over the mixture and garnish with lettuce leaves and stuffed olives.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Chicken
Forms the body of the salad and supplies its main protein texture.
Hard boiled eggs
Whites add chopped bulk and mild texture; mashed yolks enrich the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the rich yolk and butter dressing.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the dressing's flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually beat in the vinegar. Adding vinegar slowly lets it emulsify into the mashed yolk and butter, keeping the dressing smooth instead of separating or turning thin and watery.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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