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Cream Chicken

A baked chicken dish with sweetbreads, mushrooms, and a cream sauce topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cream 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 the meat

  1. Boil the chicken and sweetbreads separately until cooked.

  2. Cut the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms into small pieces.

  3. In a dish, combine the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Scald the cream and gradually add it to the roux, stirring until smooth.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then pour it over the chicken mixture.

Bake

  1. Cover with bread crumbs and dot with butter on top.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce as a roux.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and adds flavor, and browns the crumb topping.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it richness and a creamy texture.
Sweetbreads
Provides tender, rich meat that is cooked and folded into the dish.
Chicken
Serves as the main meat, cooked first and then cut into small pieces.

The step that matters

Adding the cream to the roux. Adding cold or hot cream too quickly, or without stirring, can make lumps in the roux. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth as the flour starch thickens it.

“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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