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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of cooked chicken, celery, and a creamy mustard dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, mustard, salt, red pepper, lemon juice, and vinegar.

  3. Gradually mix the egg mixture into the hot milk and cream, stirring constantly until it thickens.

Combine and serve

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

  2. Pour the thickened mixture over the chicken and celery, and mix well.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Milk and cream
Form the rich base of the dressing, adding moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the dairy and egg.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot milk and cream. Egg yolks scramble if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Adding the egg mixture gradually while stirring constantly tempers it, so the dressing thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, butter, egg, pepper, lemon, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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