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Chicken Salad

A salad made with shredded boiled chicken, celery, eggs, and a dressing of egg, mustard, olive oil, sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

  1. Shred the meat of the boiled chicken into a bowl and add the finely chopped celery and chopped hard boiled eggs.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten raw egg, salt, pepper, mustard, olive oil, sugar, vinegar, and red pepper.

  3. Pour the dressing over the chicken mixture and combine well.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg
Binds the dressing and thickens it slightly when gently cooked or emulsified.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the dressing a smooth body.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the oil into the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil and egg.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds soft, creamy texture and body to the salad.

The step that matters

Combine the dressing with the chicken well. Mixing thoroughly spreads the oil-and-egg dressing evenly so every piece of chicken is coated, keeping the salad moist and consistently seasoned.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, egg, pepper, mustard, olive, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, egg, pepper, mustard, olive, sugar. 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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