Name: Chicken Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 6 egg yolks, well beaten; ½ cup melted butter or oil; 3 tablespoons mixed mustard; Salt and pepper to taste; 2 teaspoons celery seed; ¾ cup strong vinegar

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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 Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, melted butter or oil, mustard, salt, pepper, and celery seed.
Mix thoroughly.
Place the mixture in a saucepan and add the vinegar.
Stir constantly over low heat until thickened like boiled custard.

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.

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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, mustard, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.