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Creamed Chicken

A creamy chicken dish with eggs, celery, and pimento.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,375 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the cold chicken, hard-boiled eggs, white sauce, chicken stock, pimento, and celery in a saucepan. Season with salt, white pepper, and paprika.

  2. Heat the mixture gently until warmed through.

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 + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Chicken + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + celerytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,360 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the dish.
White sauce
Supplies creaminess and moisture that binds the mixture together.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft texture and richness to the filling.
Chicken stock
Adds savory flavor and loosens the sauce to a creamy consistency.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a mild, fresh flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture gently until warmed through. White sauce is an emulsion of starch, milk fat, and liquid that can break, turn grainy, or scorch if it boils hard or heats too fast. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and creamy while warming the chicken and eggs evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, sauce, celery):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, sauce, celery. 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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