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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded lettuce, cooked chicken, eggs, anchovies, olives, capers, shallot, parsley, oil, tarragon vinegar, mayonnaise, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chicken, shallot, parsley, oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and salt in a small pan.

  2. Let soak for 3 hours.

  3. Boil the eggs hard and cut them into quarters.

  4. Chop the anchovies, olives, and capers.

  5. Reserve the small hearts of the lettuce for garnish.

  6. Shred the other leaves finely.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer salad on a dish, adding chicken, chopped anchovies, and more salad in turn.

  2. Repeat until all ingredients are used.

  3. Top with a thick layer of mayonnaise sauce.

  4. Garnish with lettuce hearts and egg quarters.

  5. Prepare the dish on pounded ice.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken meat
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its protein-rich bulk.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, creamy texture and richness to the layered salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and moisture, binding the layers and giving a rich, smooth topping.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savory depth that enhances the other ingredients.
Lettuce
Provides crisp, fresh bulk and a light, watery texture between the layers.

The step that matters

Let soak for 3 hours. Soaking the chicken in oil and tarragon vinegar lets the acid and oil season the meat and soften its surface, so the flavor carries through the salad.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, shallot, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, egg. 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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