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Chicken Salad

A creamy chicken salad made with egg yolks, butter, mustard, vinegar, celery seed, and chopped celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

Make the dressing

  1. Combine egg yolks, melted butter (or olive oil), mixed mustard, salt, and celery seed in a bowl. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Add the strong vinegar and place the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens like boiled custard.

Assemble the salad

  1. Pour the thickened mixture over the chopped chicken.

  2. Just before serving, add the chopped celery.

  3. If desired, adjust the spice with more mustard and cayenne pepper.

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. Mustard + celerytop 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. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Celery + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 creamy, custard-like body.
Butter or olive oil
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel, carrying flavor through the dressing.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the yolks and fat.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps it thicken into a custard-like texture.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mildly vegetal flavor to the salad.

The step that matters

Thickening the dressing over low heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Heating gently while stirring constantly lets the yolks thicken smoothly into a custard instead of curdling.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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