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Chicken Salad

A salad of diced chicken, celery, grapes, walnuts, and a creamy mustard dressing.

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 the chicken

  1. Boil the fowl until tender, then let it cool in the cooking liquid.

  2. Remove the skin and discard any tough or sinewy meat.

  3. Dice the chicken into ¼ inch pieces and mix with the celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks and boiling vinegar, cooking until thick while stirring.

  2. Remove from heat, add the butter, and stir until smooth and cool.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and mustard, then mix in whipped cream to achieve the desired consistency.

Assemble

  1. Before serving, fold in the halved grapes and walnuts.

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. 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 + meattop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness, rounding the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds moisture for a softer texture.
Chicken meat
Provides the main body and protein of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a slightly bitter, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk and vinegar mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stir constantly over gentle heat and remove as soon as the mixture is thick, so the dressing stays smooth.

Swap the celery

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

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

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