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Creamed Chicken

A baked chicken dish with a cream sauce, sweetbreads, mushrooms, and a breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Creamed 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 ↓

Creamed 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 meat

  1. Boil the chicken and sweetbreads until cooked, then let them cool.

  2. Cut the chicken and sweetbreads into pieces as for a salad.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the cream over medium heat.

  2. In another pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Pour the melted butter and flour mixture into the hot cream, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add the grated onion, nutmeg, black pepper, and red pepper to the cream mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Combine the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms in a baking pan.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the chicken and top with bread crumbs and butter pieces.

  3. 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.

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Cream
Forms the rich, smooth body of the sauce and carries the flavor of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter and heated liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk, holding its texture after boiling and baking.
Sweetbreads
Add a tender, delicate texture to the mixture of meats.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the cream sauce. Flour must be fully mixed into the melted butter before being whisked into hot cream, and the sauce must be stirred until thickened. Adding flour unevenly or skipping stirring can leave lumps and a thin, uneven sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, cream, butter, flour, nutmeg, 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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