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Salad

Dressing for Chicken Salad

A dressing made from mashed egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, and chopped celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Dressing for Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 ↓

Dressing for Chicken Salad

sufficient for two chickens

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mash the yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Add olive oil, vinegar, mixed mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Chop the celery and fold it into the dressing.

  4. This dressing is sufficient for two chickens.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness and helps hold the oil and yolks together as an emulsion.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, vegetal bite that contrasts with the smooth dressing.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, vinegar, mustard, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, 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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