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Chicken Salad

A salad made with chopped cooked chicken, vinegar, celery, mustard, pepper, salt, butter, sugar, eggs, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 fully cooked, then chop the white meat finely.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped celery, celery seed, mustard seed, black pepper, salt, mustard, melted butter, and sugar to the boiling vinegar.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the chopped chicken and stir well.

  2. Mix in the chopped hard boiled eggs and cucumber pickles.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 protein and bulk of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and brightens the dressing.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the salad.
Cucumber pickles
Add crunch and a sour, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat, which gives the dressing a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the chicken. The hot, acidic dressing must be stirred through the chicken while still warm so the meat absorbs the flavour evenly. Stirring well distributes the seasonings and prevents pockets of harsh vinegar or dry, bland meat.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, vinegar, mustard, pepper, butter, sugar. 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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