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Chicken Salad

A chilled chicken salad with celery, eggs, mustard, butter, vinegar, sweet cream, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Cook the chicken and season it well.

  2. Chop the chicken and celery by hand.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately, then mix in the butter.

  2. Combine all ingredients except the cream in an earthen dish and cook until thick like pound cake.

  3. Once cooled, stir in the cream and pour the mixture over the chicken and celery.

  4. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper and ensure the vinegar is strong.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Their yolks and whites thicken when cooked, giving the dressing body and a rich, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the eggs and cream.
Sweet cream
Stirred in after cooling, it adds moisture and smoothness to the finished salad.
Chicken
The main protein, providing bulk and texture for the salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture until thick. Egg proteins set as they heat, so cooking gently until thick, like pound cake batter, gives the dressing body. Overheating can curdle the eggs into lumps, and stopping too early leaves it thin and runny.

Swap the celery

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

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

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