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Scalloped Chicken

A baked chicken dish with mushrooms, sweetbreads, white sauce, breadcrumbs, onion, and butter.

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

Scalloped 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. In a bowl, mix the chicken, mushrooms, sweetbreads, white sauce, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and onion until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and cover with bread crumbs.

  3. Dot the top with pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in the oven 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.

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

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

  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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its main savory flavor.
White sauce
Binds the ingredients together and keeps the filling moist and creamy.
Sweetbreads
Add a rich, tender texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and enriches the flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The bread crumb topping needs enough heat and time to brown properly. Pull it too early and the top stays pale and soft, while leaving it too long can dry out the filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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