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Sauce

Chicken Cream for an Invalid

A creamy chicken sauce made by puréeing boiled chicken, simmering with broth, pepper, salt, mace, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Chicken Cream for an Invalid

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Pound the chicken to a paste in a mortar, adding some broth gradually.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Boil for a few moments with the pepper, salt, and mace.

Store and finish

  1. Refrigerate until needed.

  2. Heat over boiling water.

  3. Add the cream.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  5. Chicken + macetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breast
Provides the protein base that is pounded and sieved to thicken the sauce into a smooth body.
Chicken broth
Loosens the pounded chicken into a pourable liquid and carries the flavor through the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Forcing the pounded chicken through a sieve breaks down remaining fibers and lumps, which gives the sauce a smooth, even texture rather than a grainy one.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, mace. 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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