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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, cabbage, celery, egg whites, and a dressing of sugar, butter, mustard, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Chop the boiled chicken, cabbage, celery, and whites of hard-boiled eggs finely.

  2. In a bowl, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until fine.

Make and serve

  1. Add sugar, butter, mustard, and cider vinegar to the yolks and mix well.

  2. Combine the mixture with the chopped ingredients and serve.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + cidertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Rubbed smooth, they bind with the dressing to make a creamy base.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich texture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the yolks until fine. Yolks must be pressed very smooth before the other dressing ingredients are added. Any lumps stay in the finished salad and make the dressing grainy rather than creamy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, egg, sugar, butter, mustard, cider):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, egg, sugar, butter, mustard, cider. 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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