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Chicken Salad

Chicken salad made with boiled chicken, celery, egg yolk dressing, butter, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, pepper, and cream.

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 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 and celery

  1. Cut the boiled chicken into small pieces.

  2. Chop the celery and mix it with the chicken.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, butter, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture, then allow it to cool.

  3. Add the cream to the cooled dressing.

Combine

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture.

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 + 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of yolks and butter.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion of the dressing.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the cooled dressing, loosening its texture.

The step that matters

Boil the dressing mixture, then cool it. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Cooling before adding cream keeps the dressing smooth and prevents the cream from curdling or thinning the sauce unevenly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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