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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken, celery, celery root, eggs, mustard dressing, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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

  1. Cook the chicken until it easily parts from the bones.

  2. Let the chicken cool and cut it into small bits.

  3. In a bowl, combine the chicken, chopped celery, and grated celery root.

Make the dressing

  1. In another bowl, rub the hard-boiled egg yolks smooth.

  2. Add mustard, chicken liquid, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, melted butter or oil, cooked raw egg yolk, salt, and white pepper to the egg yolks. Mix well.

  3. Pour the dressing over the chicken mixture and stir to combine.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, fold in the chopped egg whites and pour over the sweet cream.

  2. Garnish with lettuce or celery.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main body and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Rubbed smooth, they form a creamy base that thickens the dressing.
Raw egg yolk
Cooked with hot vinegar, it enriches and thickens the dressing.
Melted butter or oil
Adds fat and richness, coating the chicken and celery smoothly.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a silky moisture poured over the finished salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the raw egg yolk with hot vinegar. The raw yolk must be cooked gently in hot vinegar so it thickens without curdling or scrambling. Stirring it in too quickly or with vinegar that is too cool can leave the dressing thin or lumpy.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, mustard, lemon, vinegar, sugar, butter. 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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