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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of chicken, celery, egg white, mayonnaise, and seasonings, garnished with pickles, capers, anchovies, olives, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the chicken, celery, and white of egg.

  2. Stir in the salad oil and vinegar, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let the mixture stand for about 1 hour.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, stir in the mayonnaise sauce.

  2. Arrange the salad on a bed of crisp lettuce.

  3. Garnish with gherkins, capers, anchovies, olives, and optionally, yolks of eggs rubbed through a fine sieve.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides the main texture and protein.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture, binding the salad into a creamy coating.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and freshness that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavor through the chicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for about 1 hour. Standing lets the chicken absorb the oil, vinegar, and seasoning, so the flavor penetrates the meat rather than sitting on the surface. Adding mayonnaise only at serving keeps it from thinning or becoming watery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, sauce, vinegar, pepper, capers, anchovy. 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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