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Chicken a LA Bechamel

A baked chicken dish topped with a creamy béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Bechamel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the chicken stock and cream, stirring until smooth.

  4. Cook for five minutes, then remove from heat.

Bake

  1. Beat in the eggs and chopped chicken.

  2. Pour the mixture into buttered ramekins or a baking dish.

  3. Place the dish in a pan of hot water.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about twenty minutes, ensuring the water does not boil.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock and cream into a smooth sauce.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the custard a firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor for the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the water bath from boiling. Eggs set gently at moderate heat. Boiling water can overheat the edges, making the custard rough, curdled, or spongy instead of smooth and tender.

“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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