Name: Scalloped Chicken
Ingredients: 1 chicken; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; bits of butter; finely chopped ham; cracker crumbs; 1 pint cream; milk to fill the pan

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 ↓

Scalloped Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

Boil the chicken until tender, then remove the bones and chop the meat.

Layer and bake

In a pan, place a layer of chicken and season with pepper, salt, bits of butter, and chopped ham.
Cover with a layer of cracker crumbs.
Repeat the layers until the dish is nearly filled.
Add cream and enough milk to fill the pan.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,389 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,497 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Forms the main body of the dish and provides the savory protein base.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture, helping the layers become tender and custard-like as they bake.
Milk: Adds liquid that soaks into the crumbs and layers, keeping the dish moist during baking.
Cracker crumbs: Absorb the liquid and help hold the layers together as the dish bakes.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor, and helps the top brown during baking.

“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.