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Chicken Salad

A salad made with boiled chicken, pickles, egg, and a dressing of egg yolks, butter, sugar, vinegar, and mustard.

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

Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and vegetables

  1. Boil the chicken until fully cooked.

  2. Remove the meat from the bones and chop it finely.

  3. If using cabbage, mix it with the celery.

  4. If using celery, cut it into small pieces.

  5. Combine the chicken, cabbage or celery, pickles, hard-boiled egg, and salt in a bowl. Mix well with a fork.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks, butter, sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Once cooled, stir in the mustard.

Assemble and rest

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad.

  2. Let the salad sit for 1–2 hours 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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body and protein of the salad once cooked and chopped.
Egg yolks
Thicken the vinegar dressing as they cook and give it a rich, smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the cooked dressing smoother and richer.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar in the dressing.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds firm texture and body to the chopped salad.

The step that matters

Cooking the dressing over low heat. Egg yolks set when heated, so cooking slowly over low heat while stirring constantly thickens the dressing smoothly. Higher heat or no stirring can scramble the yolks into lumps.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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