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Steamed Chicken

A whole chicken is steamed and served with a spicy gravy dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Steamed Chicken

Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Steamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Season the chicken inside with pepper and ½ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Place the chicken in a steamer over boiling water and cover.

  3. Steam for 1.5 hours, keeping it hot while preparing the dressing.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, boil 1 pint of gravy from the kettle without fat.

  2. Add cayenne pepper and ½ teaspoon of salt to the gravy.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ¼ cup of cream until smooth, then add to the gravy.

  4. Optionally, use cornstarch instead of flour and add nutmeg or celery salt if desired.

Serve

  1. Cut up the chicken and arrange it on a platter.

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. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and moist during gentle steaming.
Gravy
Supplies the savory base of the dressing, carrying the flavour of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the dressing becomes smooth and clings to the chicken.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the cream before adding it to the gravy. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps because its starch granules hydrate unevenly. Mixing it smoothly into cold cream first separates the granules so the gravy thickens evenly.

“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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