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Maryland Chicken with Cream Gravy and Hominy

A whole chicken baked in butter, simmered, then served with a cream gravy and cooked hominy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Maryland Chicken with Cream Gravy and Hominy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  2. In a skillet, melt the butter and brown the chicken on all sides.

  3. Add water to cover the chicken and simmer until cooked through.

  4. Remove the chicken and keep warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Stir the heavy cream into the skillet, scraping up any browned bits.

  2. Serve the chicken with the cream gravy and cooked hominy.

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. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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; browning it in butter builds flavour in the pan.
Butter
Fat for browning the chicken, adding richness and savoury, toasted flavour.
Heavy cream
Forms the body of the gravy, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Hominy
Adds a soft, starchy texture and mild corn flavour alongside the chicken.

The step that matters

Scraping up the browned bits into the cream. The browned bits left by the chicken contain concentrated flavour. Scraping them into the cream dissolves and disperses them, giving the gravy its savoury depth.

“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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