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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded white chicken, chopped celery, and hard‑boiled eggs, dressed with mustard, oil, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Mince the white meat of the chicken finely or pull it into bits.

  2. Chop the white parts of the celery.

  3. In a bowl, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smooth with a spoon.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the mustard, salt, oil, and vinegar to the egg yolks and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a glass salad bowl, place the chopped celery, then layer the chicken on top.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery.

  3. Slice the whites of the eggs into rings to garnish the salad.

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. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  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

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks mash into the dressing to add richness and body.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.
Oil
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rich.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts the richness.

The step that matters

Smoothing the egg yolks before adding the other dressing ingredients. Yolks rubbed smooth with a spoon blend evenly into the oil and vinegar. Lumps left in the yolks will not disperse, so the dressing stays grainy and uneven.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, egg, mustard, 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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