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Salad

Chicken Salad

A layered salad of chopped chicken, celery, and boiled eggs, dressed with oil and garnished with olives and celery leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Salad

Why it works: Chicken and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,888 recipes. Both carry acetic acid hexyl ester, which smells sweet, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the celery and spread it on a towel to absorb excess water.

Assemble

  1. Layer half of the celery in the bottom of a salad dish and sprinkle lightly with salt.

  2. Add a layer of chicken on top of the celery.

  3. Pour oil dressing over the chicken.

  4. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a generous amount of dressing on top.

Garnish and chill

  1. Garnish with thin slices of boiled egg, olives, and small celery leaves around the edge.

  2. Keep the salad cold until ready to serve.

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. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  2. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh flavor to each layer.
Oil dressing
Adds moisture and richness, coating the chicken and celery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, olive. 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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