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Salad

Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad is a chilled dish of boiled chicken, celery, and a creamy dressing of egg yolks, butter, vinegar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Boil the fowl and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Chop the celery finely and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and a small amount of water.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens like cream.

  3. Stir in mustard, cayenne pepper, sugar, and salt to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the chicken and celery together and add the dressing one hour before serving.

  2. For extra richness, add a small amount of cream and pecans if desired.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and emulsify it into a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, smoothing its texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Fowl
Provides the main protein and body of the salad.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set when overheated and can scramble into lumps. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat lets the yolks thicken smoothly into a cream-like sauce.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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