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Cream Chicken

Cream Chicken is a creamy chicken dish with butter, flour, cream, green peppers, and seasonings served over toast or in a patty shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until well blended.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

Add the chicken and peppers

  1. Grind half of the boiled chicken and add it to the sauce.

  2. Add the parboiled and finely chopped green peppers.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on buttered toast or in a patty shell.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Starch thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, cohesive sauce as it heats.
Cream
Provides the liquid base and richness that gives the sauce its body and smooth texture.
Butter
Fat coats the flour and carries flavor, giving the sauce a rich, mellow taste.
Boiled chicken
Supplies the main protein and substance that gives the dish its bulk and savory flavor.
Green peppers
Adds fresh, slightly bitter flavor and a bit of texture to the creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream, stirring constantly. Flour must be evenly dispersed in the melted butter before liquid is added. Adding cream slowly while stirring keeps starch granules separated, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, butter, pepper, flour. 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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