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Chicken Salad

A salad of tender chicken, boiled egg whites, celery, cabbage, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing, served on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Chop the whites of the boiled eggs and the chicken moderately fine.

  3. Add the chopped celery and cabbage to the chicken and egg whites.

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks finely.

  2. Mix the mashed yolks with butter, sugar, mustard, pepper, and salt, then stir in the vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange lettuce leaves around the salad.

  2. Pour mayonnaise over it 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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and a tender bite.
Boiled eggs
Add richness and body; the mashed yolks bind with butter and mustard into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and mayonnaise.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed yolk mixture, softening its sharpness.
Celery
Contributes crunch and a fresh, slightly savoury flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Mashing the yolks finely. Fine mashing lets the yolks blend smoothly with butter, sugar, mustard and vinegar. Lumps of dry yolk would stay separate and make the dressing uneven in texture and flavour.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, celery, butter, sugar, 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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