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Chickens with Mushroom Sauce

A stew of chicken simmered with bacon, water, pickled mushrooms, vinegar, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chickens with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. In a stew pan, cook the bacon with the water.

  2. Add the chickens and stew gently for 45 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the fat from the gravy.

  2. Add pickled mushrooms, vinegar, and white pepper to taste.

  3. Pour the sauce over the chickens and serve.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Mushroom + vinegartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together648 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Chicken + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender when stewed gently in liquid.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavours the cooking liquid and later the gravy.
Pickled mushrooms
Add a tangy, savory flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 45 minutes. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the chicken become tender. A vigorous boil tightens the muscle proteins and leaves the meat dry and tough.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, vinegar. 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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