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Boiled Fowls, with Tongue in the Centre, White Sauce

A boiled chicken served with its tongue in the center, topped with a white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Fowls, with Tongue in the Centre, White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Cook the meats

  1. In a large pot, cover the chicken and tongue with water and add salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually whisk in milk, cooking until thickened.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve the boiled chicken with the tongue in the center and drizzle with white sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melts with flour to form a roux that thickens the white sauce.
All-purpose flour
Combines with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, thickened by the roux into a smooth coating.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Milk added all at once or too quickly can form lumps. Adding it gradually while whisking lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken into a smooth sauce.

“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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