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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of boiled chicken, eggs, celery, mustard, butter, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, then chop the meat.

  2. Chop the egg whites and mix with the chicken.

  3. Rub the yolks with the mustard until smooth.

Make the salad

  1. Add salt, melted butter, black pepper, and vinegar to the mixture.

  2. Chop the celery and mix it all together.

  3. Serve chilled.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 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

Boiled chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, giving it substance and a tender texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body; the mustard-rubbed yolks give the dressing its smooth consistency.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and, blended with the yolks, helps create a smooth dressing.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and mouthfeel, coating the other ingredients.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, mild vegetal flavour that contrasts the soft meat and eggs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and moistens the salad.

The step that matters

Rub the yolks with the mustard until smooth. Mashing the yolks thoroughly with the mustard breaks them into a fine, even paste. Lumps left behind would spread unevenly through the salad and make the dressing feel grainy.

Swap the celery

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

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

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