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Scalloped Chicken

A baked dish of boiled chicken, potatoes, and breadcrumbs topped with a buttery gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Scalloped Chicken

Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Chicken

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.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the fowl joints until the meat easily separates from the bone.

  2. Remove the bones and chop the meat into small pieces.

  3. Thicken the boiling water with flour and season with butter and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer bread crumbs, chicken, and sliced potatoes in a deep dish.

  2. Finish with a top layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Pour the gravy over the layers.

  4. Add a few bits of butter.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned.

  6. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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.

  1. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter 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

Fowl
Provides the meat and, when boiled, the broth that becomes the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the boiling water into a gravy that moistens the layers.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the top brown and the gravy taste rounded.
Bread crumbs
Form the layers and top crust, soaking up gravy and crisping in the oven.
Potatoes
Add bulk and body between the layers, absorbing some of the gravy as they bake.

The step that matters

Thicken the boiling water with flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the hot liquid so it swells and thickens evenly; lumps or undissolved flour leave a pasty gravy instead of a smooth sauce that coats the layers.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, bread, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, bread, parsley. 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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