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Chicken Creamed

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Creamed

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the cream or milk in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little milk to form a paste, then stir it into the hot cream.

  3. Add the butter, salt, pepper, and parsley, and let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the shredded chicken, sweetbreads, mushrooms, and the cream mixture, alternating each ingredient.

  2. Finish with the cream mixture on top and sprinkle with grated bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the bulk of the dish and its main meaty texture.
Sweetbreads
Adds a tender, rich meat texture to the layers.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour that complements the cream sauce.
Cream or milk
Forms the creamy sauce that carries moisture through the layers.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour in the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the flour paste into the hot cream. Flour mixed with liquid first into a smooth paste avoids lumps; stirring it into hot cream lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, cream, flour, butter, pepper, bread. 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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