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Creamed Chicken

A creamy casserole of chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms in a butter‑flour cream sauce topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

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 ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cook the chicken and sweetbreads until done.

  2. Let them cool and cut them into pieces as for a salad.

Make the cream dressing

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until hot.

  2. Melt the butter in another saucepan.

  3. Mix in the flour until smooth.

  4. Gradually pour in the hot cream, stirring until the mixture thickens.

  5. Add the grated onion and season lightly with salt, black pepper, and red pepper.

  6. Combine the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms with the cream dressing, stirring well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs.

  3. Dot with butter.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden and bubbly.

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

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or sweetbreads
Provide the main cooked meat, giving the dish its body and substance.
Cream
Forms the rich sauce base, giving a smooth, creamy texture when thickened.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavor, and browns the topping in the oven.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the hot cream, stirring until the mixture thickens. Adding the hot cream slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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