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Chicken Salad

A salad of shredded chicken mixed with a dressing of egg yolks, butter, sugar, mustard, vinegar, and sweet cream, topped with celery.

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

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, melted butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and white pepper until well combined.

  2. Add the boiling vinegar and stir with a silver spoon until thick.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the sweet cream just before mixing with the salad.

Prepare and combine the salad

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, remove skin and bones, and shred the meat into small pieces.

  2. Cut the celery into bits with a silver knife, mix with the chicken, and stir in the dressing.

  3. Use twice as much celery as chicken.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set with the heat of the vinegar, and add richness.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smooth, rich texture to the dressing.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the thickened dressing.
Boiling vinegar
Acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps the yolks thicken.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh flavor to balance the rich dressing.

The step that matters

Stirring the vinegar into the yolks. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated; if the boiling vinegar is added too fast or stirred too little, the yolks can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, thick custard-like dressing.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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