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Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of shredded boiled chicken, celery, and mayonnaise, garnished with celery tips, hard‑boiled eggs, lettuce, beets, or capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, then remove all fat and shred the meat into small pieces.

  2. Mix the shredded chicken with the celery in a bowl.

  3. Add mayonnaise dressing and toss thoroughly.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill in a cool place until ready to serve.

  2. Garnish with celery tips, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce leaves, cold boiled beets, or capers.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Chicken + lettucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,421 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad, with its meat shredded for a tender bite.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and moisture that bind the chicken and celery and give the salad its creamy texture.

The step that matters

Shred the chicken while it is still warm and well cooked. Chicken boiled until fully tender shreds easily into small pieces. Removing all fat keeps the salad from tasting greasy and helps the dressing coat the meat evenly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lettuce, capers):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lettuce, 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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