Why it works: Chicken and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Creamed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Steam or boil the chicken until tender.
Cut the chicken into pieces as for a salad.
Make the creamed chicken
In a saucepan, make a white sauce using the milk.
Add the chicken to the white sauce and season with salt and pepper.
If desired, add nuts and a little sherry wine for extra flavor.
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.
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Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together891 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together982 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main body of the dish as tender, bite-sized meat in the sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Steam or boil the chicken until tender. Chicken that is not fully cooked and tender before cutting will stay tough and chewy, and simmering it in the sauce will not soften it enough to fix that.
Swap the nuts
The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, pepper, sherry, wine):
- Beansfits better
- Peasfits better
- Cocoafits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, pepper, sherry, wine. 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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