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Chicken À LA King

A creamy chicken dish with peas, onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, and pimiento.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,171 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook peas, onion, and green bell pepper in boiling water, covered, for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain and save the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Blend flour with the milk.

  2. Combine vegetable cooking liquid, broth, and seasonings; slowly stir into the flour mixture.

  3. Heat the mixture until it comes to a boil while stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute.

Finish and serve

  1. Add chicken and the cooked vegetables, mushrooms and pimiento.

  2. Heat thoroughly and serve.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,171 recipes

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

  2. Onion + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

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

  3. Peas + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Milk + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + chickentop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and broth into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce along with the flour.
Chicken broth
Adds savory liquid that gives the sauce its main flavor.
Cooked chicken or turkey
Provides the main protein and substantial bite in the dish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft, meaty texture.
Frozen peas
Add sweetness and color along with a tender bite.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the liquid. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, pepper, flour, milk, chicken, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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