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Salad

Chicken Salad Without Oil

A chilled salad of shredded chicken, celery, hard‑boiled eggs, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and celery

  1. Boil the chicken until very tender.

  2. Remove the bones and cut the chicken into small strips.

  3. Scrape and wash the celery, then cut it into pieces ½ inch long.

  4. Mix the celery with the chicken.

Dress and serve

  1. For the dressing, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs to a smooth paste with mustard, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery mixture just before serving.

  3. Garnish with delicate celery leaves and rings of egg whites.

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. Celery + mustardtop 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. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 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

Chicken
Provides the main body and protein of the salad, becoming tender when boiled.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch to the salad.
Hard boiled eggs
Yolks are mashed into the dressing, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavor to the dressing and helps it emulsify smoothly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Dress the salad just before serving. Vinegar and salt draw moisture from celery and soften it over time, so dressing too early leaves the salad limp and watery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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