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Chicken a LA King

Chicken à la King is a creamy chicken dish with mushrooms, peppers, and a custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Chicken a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt butter in a pan and add mushrooms, then cook for five minutes.

  2. Add chicken and heat through.

  3. Stir in salt, Sherry wine, and green and red pepper strips.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Beat egg yolks until light.

  2. Add cream and cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened, about 1.5 minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour cream mixture over hot chicken mixture.

  2. Serve immediately on toast.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture as they set with gentle heat, giving the sauce body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the pan, carrying the mushrooms and peppers as they cook.
Cream
Forms the base of the sauce, adding moisture and a smooth, rich texture.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, staying tender and moist when heated through in the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savory flavor and a soft texture to the dish.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the cream mixture over boiling water while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but too much heat or too little stirring can scramble them, leaving the sauce lumpy instead of smooth.

“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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