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Salad

Chicken Salad

A custard-style chicken salad made with eggs, mustard, vinegar, butter, sugar, sweet cream, chicken, and celery.

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

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the eggs with the other ingredients as a custard.

  2. Cool the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the sweet cream or milk.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chopped chicken and celery.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing into a custard as they set with heat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness.
Sweet cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the dressing, loosening it for coating.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooked custard dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness.

The step that matters

Boil the eggs with the other ingredients as a custard. Egg proteins set when heated, but they can curdle or scramble if the heat is too high or too long. Stirring gently over moderate heat keeps the dressing smooth and thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, butter, sugar, cream, 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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