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Cream Chicken

A poached chicken breast in cream, salt, and pepper, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Cream Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the raw chicken in a bowl until finely minced.

  2. Rub the chicken through a wire sieve into a small basin.

  3. Add a little salt and pepper, then beat with a fork for 6 to 8 minutes.

  4. Gradually add the cream while continuing to beat until light and fluffy.

Poach and serve

  1. Wet a small mold or cup and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Cover with a piece of paper and poach in boiling water for 20 minutes.

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. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Chicken
Forms the main structure of the mousse when it is minced, sieved and set by gentle poaching.
Cream
Adds moisture and a light, smooth texture, making the mixture rich and fluffy when beaten in.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream while beating. Adding cream slowly while beating lets it emulsify into the chicken proteins, keeping the mixture light and smooth instead of separated or dense.

“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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