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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of boiled chicken, celery, and a mayonnaise 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. In a large bowl, combine the white meat of boiled chickens and chopped celery. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and set aside in a cool place.

Make the dressing

  1. For the mayonnaise, rub the yolks of hard-boiled eggs until fine.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the yolks and slowly incorporate 1 teaspoon of olive oil drop by drop while stirring vigorously.

  3. Mix in 1 teaspoon of mustard, white pepper, and 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  4. Whip the egg white to froth and fold it into the dressing.

  5. Gradually add vinegar, stirring constantly until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Carefully mix the salad with the dressing using two forks.

  2. Line a salad bowl with lettuce leaves and garnish with chopped hard-boiled egg white.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with oil to form a rich, creamy mayonnaise-style dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, emulsified into the yolks to give the dressing body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
White meat of boiled chickens
Provides the main protein and substance of the salad.
Egg white
Whipped to froth and folded in, adding lightness and a airy texture to the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil drop by drop while stirring vigorously. Oil added too quickly to egg yolks cannot be dispersed into them, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns greasy and separated instead of creamy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, egg, olive, mustard, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, egg, olive, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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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