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Stewed Chicken

A stew of young hen simmered in water, seasoned with salt and pepper, thickened with cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and cut up the hen.

  2. Place the hen in a saucepan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Add salt to taste and pepper to taste.

Cook

  1. Boil until tender.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the cream with the flour until smooth.

  3. Stir the cream mixture into the stew.

  4. If adding noodles, ensure the stew is not too dry.

  5. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

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. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Hen
Provides the meat and body of the stew as it cooks until tender.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the stewed liquid.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream and stew by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream and flour mixture into the stew. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid clumps; blending it smoothly with cream first lets the starch disperse evenly so the stew thickens without lumps.

“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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