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Scallop Chicken

A baked chicken dish with mushroom and sweetbread sauce topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scallop 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

  1. Boil the milk, sweetbreads, and chicken separately.

  2. Cut the sweetbreads into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, heat the butter and add the flour, stirring until combined.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk until smooth.

  3. Add the chicken, mushrooms, onion, and sweetbreads to the sauce.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, cover with bread crumbs, and dot with butter.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that binds the dish.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Sweetbreads
Provide a tender, rich meat texture that absorbs the sauce.
Whole chicken
Supplies the main cooked meat that is combined into the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the milk until smooth. Adding milk slowly to the butter and flour roux lets starch granules separate and hydrate evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thick sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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