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Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad of cold roasted chicken with capers, pickled gherkins, anchovies, lettuce, and a dressing of oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the cut chicken in a salad bowl.

  2. Add capers, pickled gherkins, anchovies, and small cut lettuces.

Dress and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad and chicken, layering them as you go.

  3. Garnish with quartered lettuces, gherkins, capers, anchovies, and nasturtium flowers if in season.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  3. Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, creamy dressing that clings to the salad.
Oil
Provides fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute salty, savory depth to the salad and dressing.
Pickled gherkins
Add sharp acidity and crunch that contrast with the chicken and lettuce.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg yolks into the oil and vinegar. Yolks are emulsifiers that hold oil and vinegar together; if the oil is added too fast or the mixture is not whisked well, the dressing separates instead of turning creamy.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, 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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