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Salad

Salad Dressing No. 1

A creamy chicken and celery salad dressing made with eggs, butter, cream, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Salad Dressing No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. In a bowl, mix melted butter, cream, mustard, and sugar.

  3. Cook the mixture over hot water until it thickens to custard consistency.

Assemble the salad

  1. Shred the chicken and chop the celery.

  2. Combine one-third of the chicken with two-thirds of the celery.

  3. Add the custard dressing and season with pepper and salt.

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.

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing into a custard when gently heated and add richness.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smooth richness to the dressing.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, giving the dressing a smooth, rich texture.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over hot water until it thickens to custard consistency. Egg proteins set gently as they heat, thickening the dressing. Heating too fast or too hot can curdle the eggs, leaving a grainy texture, so gentle indirect heat over hot water is safer.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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