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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken or turkey with celery, mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and egg whites served on lettuce.

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 the chicken

  1. In a large bowl, combine the white meat of turkey or boiled chicken and chopped celery. Sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt and set aside to cool.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. For the mayonnaise, rub the yolks of two hard boiled eggs as fine as possible. Add 1 teaspoon salt and mix.

  2. Slowly add 1 cup of olive oil, drop by drop, while stirring constantly.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon prepared mustard, 1 teaspoon white pepper, and 2 teaspoons white sugar. Mix well.

  4. Whip the egg white to a froth and fold it into the dressing.

  5. Finally, stir in 1 tablespoon vinegar, mixing carefully.

Assemble and serve

  1. Line a serving dish with lettuce leaves and top with the chicken salad. Garnish with chopped hard 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Forms the emulsified base of the dressing, giving it richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Their fat and lecithin help emulsify the oil, giving the dressing a thick, stable texture.
Egg white
Whipped to a froth and folded in, it lightens the dressing and adds airy volume.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
White meat of turkey or boiled chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
White sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the acidity and salt.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Adding it too fast prevents the egg yolk from emulsifying the oil, so the mayonnaise can split and turn greasy and runny.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, egg, olive, 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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