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Salad

Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of cooked chicken, celery, eggs, and a mustard vinaigrette topped with mayonnaise and garnished with capers.

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

Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chicken and celery in a bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix mashed yolks, mustard, salt, pepper, and oil until smooth.

  3. Stir in vinegar and pour over the chicken and celery mixture.

  4. Toss gently with a fork and transfer to a serving bowl.

Serve

  1. Top with mayonnaise dressing, sliced egg whites, and capers.

  2. Garnish with fresh celery sprigs around the dish.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the salad and provides the protein texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Mashed yolks enrich the dressing, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Oil
Emulsifies with the mashed yolks to make a smooth, rich dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mildly savory note.

The step that matters

Mixing the yolk dressing until smooth. Mashed yolks, mustard and oil must be blended thoroughly so the oil emulsifies into a stable, creamy dressing instead of separating into greasy pools.

Swap the celery

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

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

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