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Steamed Chickens

Steamed chickens seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked in a steamer and served with a dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Steamed Chickens

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of the chickens with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the chickens in a steamer.

  3. Select a kettle large enough to hold the steamer and fill it with water.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the kettle and steam for 1.5 hours, or until the chickens are tender.

  2. Keep the chickens hot in the steamer while making the gravy.

  3. Cut the chickens as for a fricassee, arrange on a platter, and pour the dressing over them 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.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and moist through gentle steaming.
Salt
Seasons the meat and helps flavor penetrate the flesh.

The step that matters

Steam until the chickens are tender. Steaming is gentle, so the chicken needs enough time for connective tissue to soften. Checking for tenderness rather than relying only on the clock keeps the meat from turning dry or tough.

“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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