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Escaloped Chicken

Escaloped Chicken is a baked dish of layered chicken, crackers, butter, cream, and oysters, seasoned with pepper, salt, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Escaloped Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chickens until fully cooked, then remove the skin and gristle.

  2. Chop the meat into small pieces.

Layer the dish

  1. Butter a large baking dish and layer pounded crackers in the bottom.

  2. Add bits of butter and moisten with cream.

  3. Layer the chopped chicken on top, seasoning with white pepper, coarse sea salt, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  4. Add more bits of butter and a few chopped oysters.

  5. Repeat with another layer of crackers, butter, and cream, followed by another layer of chicken.

  6. Cover the top with more crackers and butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled and then chopped.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the crackers brown in the oven.
Pounded crackers
Form the absorbent base and layers that soak up cream and juices while holding structure.
Cream
Moistens the cracker layers, adding richness and keeping the dish from drying out.
Chopped oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour that seasons the chicken layers.

The step that matters

Moistening the cracker layers with cream. Crackers need enough cream to soften and absorb liquid, but too much makes the dish soggy and greasy. Spreading the cream evenly across each layer lets the crackers bind and bake to a golden, set texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, cream, lemon, nutmeg, oyster):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, cream, lemon, nutmeg, oyster. 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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