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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, mayonnaise dressing, capers, and boiled egg slices.

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 pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens and let them cool in the cooking water.

  2. Once cold, remove the skin and cut the meat into dice, using only the white meat for a nicer salad.

  3. Set the diced chicken in a cold place until needed.

Prepare the celery

  1. Wash and cut the celery into half‑inch lengths, then soak in cold water for at least an hour.

  2. Dry the celery and mix it with the chicken, using ⅔ pint of celery for every pint of chicken.

  3. Season the mixture with celery salt.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Line a bowl with lettuce leaves, then add the chicken and celery mixture.

  2. Pour over 1 cup of cream or mayonnaise dressing for every pint of chicken.

  3. Garnish with French capers and slices of cold boiled eggs.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender chickens
Provide the main meat, which is cooked and cooled before dicing.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savoury crunch to the salad.
Cream or mayonnaise salad dressing
Adds moisture and richness that binds the chicken and celery together.
Slices of cold boiled eggs
Adds soft texture and mild richness as a garnish.

The step that matters

Dry the celery before mixing. Celery soaked in cold water holds surface moisture; if not dried, it dilutes the dressing and makes the salad watery. Thorough drying keeps the dressing thick and clinging to the chicken.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, cream, egg, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, cream, egg, vinegar, 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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