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Escaloped Chicken

A baked dish of layered chicken, crackers, butter, cream, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Escaloped Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the chickens until fully cooked, then remove the skin and gristle and chop the meat.

  2. Butter a large baking dish and add a layer of pounded crackers at the bottom.

Layer

  1. Dot the crackers with bits of butter and moisten with cream.

  2. Add a layer of chopped chicken seasoned with white pepper, coarse sea salt, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  3. Sprinkle bits of butter and a few chopped oysters on top.

  4. Add another layer of crackers, butter, and cream, followed by another layer of chicken.

  5. Finish by covering the top with crackers and butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the bulk and tender meat that forms the main layers of the dish.
Pounded crackers
Soak up cream and butter to form soft, absorbent layers that hold the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top layer brown in the oven.
Cream
Moistens the crackers and adds richness to the layers.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the chicken layer.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven until golden. Baking at high heat browns the butter and crackers on top while the cream sets into the layers. Pulling it too early leaves the dish pale and loose, and leaving it too long can dry the chicken.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, cream, lemon, nutmeg, oyster):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, cream, lemon, nutmeg, oyster. 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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