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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, eggs, mustard, vinegar, butter, 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

  1. Boil the white meat of two good-sized chickens and cut it into coarse pieces.

  2. Add more chicken than chopped celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In an earthen dish, beat the eggs, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar (if using).

  2. Add vinegar and butter, then place the dish in a vessel of boiling water.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens slightly more than boiled custard.

  4. Keep the dressing cool and thin with cream 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. 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Cooked gently with vinegar, they thicken the dressing into a custard-like texture that binds the salad.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavour that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps it set as the eggs cook.
White meat of cooked chickens
Forms the main body of the salad, giving it substance and bite.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over boiling water. Egg proteins set gradually with gentle heat. If the mixture is stirred poorly or gets too hot, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so the dressing must thicken smoothly and stop just short of that point.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, egg, mustard, pepper, sugar, 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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