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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of chopped chicken, celery, eggs, and a creamy dressing of lemon, vinegar, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped chicken and celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the mashed yolks with flour, sugar, mustard, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add melted butter and sweet oil to the yolk mixture, then stir in the cream and vinegar.

Combine and finish

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture, and mix well.

  2. Gently fold in the chopped egg whites and adjust seasoning if necessary.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its main texture and substance.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks mashed into the dressing add richness and body; chopped whites add texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and mouthfeel in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the fats.
Flour
Thickens the dressing slightly so it clings to the chicken and celery.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and vinegar last, after the butter and oil. Adding the butter and oil to the yolks first lets them emulsify into a smooth base. Acidic vinegar added too early or to a cold, separated mixture can curdle the cream and make the dressing look broken.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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