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Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled or roasted chicken, celery, lettuce, and a dressing of mustard, oil, vinegar, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the tender meat from the chickens finely.

  2. Chop the celery and lettuce, then mix with the chicken.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mash the egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Add mustard, salt, salad oil, sugar, and vinegar to the yolks and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture in a salad bowl.

  2. Garnish with rings cut from the boiled egg whites.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken meat
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Egg yolks
Mashed into a smooth base that emulsifies the dressing and gives it body.
English mustard
Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the richness of the yolks and oil.
Salad oil
Supplies fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a silky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat and sugar.

The step that matters

Mashing the egg yolks smooth before adding the other dressing ingredients. Yolks mashed until smooth form a uniform base; lumps left in the yolk will not blend evenly into the oil and vinegar, leaving a grainy, uneven dressing.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lettuce, egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lettuce, egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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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