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Creamed Chicken

Creamed Chicken is a dish of boiled chicken simmered in butter and milk, thickened with flour, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Creamed Chicken

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Allow the chicken to cool.

Make the creamed chicken

  1. Place the chicken breast in a chafing dish with melted butter that is just beginning to brown.

  2. Heat the chicken thoroughly.

  3. Add the rich milk.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Thicken the mixture slightly with flour rubbed smooth in a little butter.

Serve

  1. Pour the creamed chicken over squares of 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish, becoming tender from boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and carries the flour for thickening.
Rich milk
Forms the creamy sauce base that gives the dish its body and smoothness.
Flour
Thickens the milk sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, coating consistency.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture slightly with flour rubbed smooth in a little butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Rubbing it smooth in butter first lets the starch 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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