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Chicken Salad

A salad of cooked chicken, celery, egg yolks, mustard, salt, oil, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. In a large bowl, mix the chopped chicken and celery.

  2. In a separate bowl, rub the yolks of the hard boiled eggs smooth.

Make and combine

  1. Add the mustard, coarse sea salt, oil, and vinegar to the egg yolks and mix well.

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

  3. Add a little cream to the dressing just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed yolks emulsify with the oil and form a smooth, creamy dressing body.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving the dressing a silky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Cooked chicken
Provides the protein base and bulk of the salad, absorbing the dressing's flavor.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft chicken.

The step that matters

Rub the egg yolks smooth before adding the other dressing ingredients. Yolks left in lumps will not blend evenly with the oil and vinegar, so the dressing can separate and feel grainy instead of creamy. Mashing them fully first helps them form a stable emulsion.

Swap the celery

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

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

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