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Chicken a LA King

A creamy chicken dish with mushrooms, peppers, peas, asparagus, and egg yolks, served in a sauce of flour, chicken soup, cream, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until cooked, then remove and cut the large white and dark pieces into 2‑inch strips.

  2. Slice the green pepper into thin strips and chop the pimento into small pieces.

  3. Drain the mushrooms and peas.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat ⅓ cup of the fat over medium heat in a large skillet, then add the flour.

  2. Once bubbling, gradually stir in 1½ cups of chicken soup until thick and smooth.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.

  4. Add the liquid from the mushrooms and stir well.

Combine and finish

  1. Combine the chicken, peppers, pimento, peas, and asparagus with the sauce.

  2. Stir in the cream, sherry wine, and egg yolks until well mixed.

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. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Mushroom + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the fat into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Chicken fat or butter
Carries flavor and forms the base roux with the flour.
Chicken soup
Provides the liquid that turns the roux into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the sauce, adding richness and body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and a fragrant, mellow aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks gently. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the sauce is boiling when they go in, the proteins can scramble and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir steadily.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, pepper, asparagus, flour, cream, sherry. 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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