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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad made with boiled chicken, celery, eggs, mustard, vinegar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Boil the chicken until very tender, then remove the skin and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Chop the tender parts of the celery and soak them in water for a while.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks finely, then add the raw egg yolks, mustard, pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Stir the mixture together while slowly adding olive oil until well combined.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil to form a thick, creamy dressing that binds the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, forming an emulsion with the yolks for a smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and yolk mixture together.

The step that matters

Slowly adding olive oil while stirring. Adding oil too fast before the yolks can absorb it causes the emulsion to break, leaving a greasy, separated dressing instead of a smooth, creamy one.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar, olive. 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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