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Chicken a LA King

A creamy chicken dish with diced chicken, red pepper, egg yolk, and butter served hot over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Chicken a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chicken filling

  1. Cut the boiled chicken into dice and place in a saucepan.

  2. Moisten the chicken with hot cream.

  3. Add the red pepper cut into pieces, salt, and pepper.

  4. Let simmer for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

  2. Beat the egg yolk and mix it with cream. Do not let it boil.

  3. Add a piece of butter to the mixture.

  4. Serve very hot on fresh-made toast.

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

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

  2. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.
Hot cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the chicken tender in the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce gently and gives it a smooth, rich texture when kept below boiling.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and a rounder, richer flavour.
Red pepper
Adds sweetness and colour to the filling.

The step that matters

Do not let it boil after adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat. If the mixture boils, the yolk proteins over-set and can curdle, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

“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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