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Scalloped Chicken

A baked chicken dish with mushrooms, sweetbreads, and white sauce topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Scalloped Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Scalloped Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cook the chicken and cut it into pieces.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chicken, mushrooms, and sweetbreads with white sauce until soft.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and onion.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and cover with bread crumbs.

  2. Dot with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks in the sauce.
Sweetbreads
Add a soft, tender texture and a rich flavour to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling.
Milk
Forms the white sauce that binds the filling and keeps it moist.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that holds the filling together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Make the white sauce smooth before adding the filling. Flour must be fully mixed into the milk and cooked so it thickens evenly; lumps or undercooked flour leave a pasty texture and raw taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, milk, flour, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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