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Chicken Salad

A chilled chicken salad with celery, eggs, mustard, vinegar, oil, and sweet cream.

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

  1. Season the chicken while cooking.

  2. Chop the chicken and celery by hand.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately, then slowly beat in the oil.

  2. Mix all ingredients except the cream in an earthen or new tin dish and place on the stove.

  3. Cook until thick like pound cake.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, stir in the cream and pour over the chicken and celery one hour before serving.

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

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

  4. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken as they heat and bind the dressing into a pound-cake-like texture.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, and emulsifies with the beaten egg yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the dressing once it has cooled.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the salad and carries the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture until thick. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the mixture thickens into a custard-like dressing. Overheating can curdle the eggs, while underheating leaves it thin and runny.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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