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Chicken a LA King

A creamy chicken dish with butter, flour, stock, cream, pimiento, mushrooms, green pepper, and egg yolk served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add flour and stir until well blended.

  3. Gradually add chicken stock.

  4. Add cream.

  5. Bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in remaining butter, mushrooms, and pimiento.

  2. Bring to a boil again.

  3. Add slightly beaten egg yolk and chicken.

  4. Serve on toast.

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

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and adds savory flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Boiled chicken
Provides the meat and bulk of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a tender, chewy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens the sauce through gentle heat, as its proteins set. If the sauce is kept at a hard boil after the yolk goes in, the yolk can curdle and turn grainy, so the sauce should be held just below boiling.

“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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