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Salad

Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of boiled chicken, eggs, celery, and cabbage mixed with batter, sugar, mustard, pepper, sea salt, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Boil the chicken tender until cooked, then chop it.

  2. Chop the hard-boiled eggs, celery, and cabbage moderately fine.

Combine and season

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, eggs, celery, and cabbage.

  2. Add the batter, sugar, mustard, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour in the cider vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Chill

  1. Refrigerate for two or three days before serving.

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. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide body and richness, forming the bulk of the salad's texture.
Chicken tender
Supplies the main protein and chewy, meaty texture in the salad.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavors and balances the richness of the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Refrigerate for two or three days before serving. Resting in the refrigerator lets the vinegar, mustard, and salt penetrate the chopped ingredients and blend the flavors. Serving too soon leaves the salad tasting sharp and unevenly seasoned.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, celery, sugar, mustard, pepper, cider):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, celery, sugar, mustard, pepper, cider. 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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