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Creamed Chicken

A creamy chicken dish made with butter, milk, cream, egg yolk, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and cream, stirring until it begins to thicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler and add the chicken.

  2. Heat thoroughly, then stir in the egg yolk and parsley. Mix well.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve on toast or in a potato border.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavor as the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, stable white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce that thickens with the flour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, more velvety texture to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Enriches and gently thickens the sauce, adding body and richness when heated.
Chopped cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by coagulating when heated. Adding it to a very hot mixture can scramble it, so it should be stirred in gently off the heat or at low heat once the sauce is hot.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, milk, egg, flour, cream, pepper. 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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