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Chicken, Mushroom Sauce for

A sauce made with chicken, mushrooms, butter, flour, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken, Mushroom Sauce for

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine chicken legs, neck, trimmings, mace, peppercorns, herbs, celery seed, lemon rind, anchovy, and water.

  2. Simmer until the liquid reduces to ½ pint.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, add mushrooms, butter rolled in flour, strained liquid, and cream or milk.

  2. Heat the sauce over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce around boiled chicken.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide savory flavor and body to the sauce.
Strained liquid
Provides the savory base that gives the sauce its main flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with the butter and flour. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid and swells. Stirring while the sauce heats keeps the flour dispersed and prevents lumps, so the sauce becomes smooth and evenly thick.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, celery, lemon, anchovy, mushroom, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, celery, lemon, anchovy, mushroom, butter. 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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