Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Chickens, Mushroom Sauce

A dish of boiled chickens served with a mushroom sauce made from milk, preserved mushrooms, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Boiled Chickens, Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Place the chickens in boiling water to cover them.

  2. Add 1 blade of mace, 1 sliced onion, 1 bay leaf, and seasoning.

  3. Boil for 35 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, combine 1 pint of milk, 1 blade of mace, 1 sliced onion, seasoning, and a little roux.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes, adding more roux if not thick enough.

  3. Strain the sauce through a sieve.

  4. Add the sliced preserved mushrooms to the sauce.

Serve

  1. Remove the chickens, drain them, and place on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the chickens and garnish with slices of lean ham.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful as they simmer in seasoned water.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Roux
Thickens the milk so the sauce coats the chicken rather than running off.
Preserved mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with roux. Roux thickens through starch that swells as it heats in liquid. Add it gradually and keep the sauce simmering, since it can stay thin if too little is used or it can become pasty if too much is added at once.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, carrot, milk, mushroom, ham):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, carrot, milk, mushroom, ham. 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes