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 ↓
Stewed Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Cover the chicken with cold water and bring to a boil.
Skim off any foam, then add pepper and coarse sea salt.
If the chicken is not fatty, add ½ cup of butter.
Boil until the chicken is tender.
Thicken and serve
In a bowl, stir 2 tablespoons of flour with a little cold milk until smooth.
Add 1 pint of cream and the flour mixture to the pot.
Cook for 10 minutes, then pour over buttered toast, biscuits, or dumplings.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together889 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + biscuittop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together841 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + biscuittop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,235 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Thickens the cream sauce as its starch swells when heated.
- Cream
- Adds richness and body to the broth, making it a smooth sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the broth and sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour into cold milk before adding it to the pot. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch outside gelatinizes before the inside can hydrate. Mixing it smooth with a little cold liquid first lets it disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.
“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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