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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, celery, lettuce, and a dressing of egg yolks, oil, mustard, citrus juice, salt, and cayenne.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Slowly add the oil drop by drop until thick.

  3. Mix in the mustard, lime or lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Prepare the salad

  1. Cut the celery and chicken into small pieces (do not chop).

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

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Place a teaspoonful on each serving of salad.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lettuce + limetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together408 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing, giving it a thick, smooth body.
Oil
Adds richness and fat, and forms the body of the thickened dressing.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and egg dressing together as a stable emulsion.
Lime or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil and yolks.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and the substantial, tender bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savoury crunch against the soft chicken.

The step that matters

Slowly add the oil drop by drop until thick.. Oil must be added gradually so the yolks can emulsify it into the dressing. Adding it too fast causes the mixture to separate and fail to thicken.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limethe original
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, celery, lettuce, mustard, 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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