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Scalloped Chicken

Scalloped chicken is a baked dish of chicken, mushrooms, and butter with a crumb topping.

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

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. 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. Cut up the chicken.

  2. Stew gently until tender.

  3. Remove the bones.

  4. Cut the meat into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Return the meat to the saucepan.

  2. Add stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the mushrooms and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Thicken the mixture with flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer it to a baking dish.

  2. Cover with cracker crumbs.

  3. Drizzle with melted butter.

  4. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Serve hot with boiled rice and currant jelly.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, coating sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C). The topping needs enough heat to brown and crisp without drying the filling. Watching the color matters, since the crumbs and butter can scorch before the dish is heated through.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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