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Chicken Salad

A salad made from boiled chicken, eggs, cabbage, and a dressing of broth, oil, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Cabbage and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the boiled chickens finely.

  2. Chop the whites of the boiled eggs and add them to the chicken.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the cooked yolks with the raw egg.

  2. Add the chicken broth and oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar to the mixture.

  3. If desired, you can use part cabbage.

  4. Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 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, providing the bulk and protein of the dish.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and body, with the yolks blending into the dressing.
Raw egg
Binds the cooked yolks into a smoother, cohesive dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the fat.
Chicken broth and oil
Add moisture and fat, keeping the chicken tender and the mixture loose.

The step that matters

Mix the raw egg into the yolks. Raw egg must be blended smoothly with the cooked yolks so the dressing emulsifies evenly; if it is added in lumps or not mixed well, the dressing can separate and taste uneven.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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