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Chicken Sauteing

Sautéed chicken pieces finished in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Sauteing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until soft, without browning.

  3. Add the chicken pieces and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Cook for 20 minutes, turning often.

  5. Dredge the chicken with flour, stir well, and add boiling stock or water.

  6. Cover and simmer gently until the chicken is cooked through.

Finish the gravy

  1. Remove excess grease from the gravy and stir in the cream.

  2. Cook for 2-3 minutes and pour over the chicken.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender when cooked gently in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the stock or water.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the gravy.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the onion and chicken and adds flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Dredge the chicken with flour and add the liquid. Flour must be stirred in well before the boiling stock or water goes in, otherwise it clumps and the gravy will be lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, chicken, pepper, cream, flour. 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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