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Creamed Chicken

A baked chicken dish with cream sauce, butter, flour, pepper, onion, nutmeg, mushrooms, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Boil the chickens and cut them into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream, butter, and flour until smooth like a cream sauce.

  3. Pour the cream mixture over the chicken and stir to combine.

Season and bake

  1. Add the pepper, grated onion, nutmeg, and mushrooms, and mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 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

Chickens
Provides the main protein and bulk of the dish once boiled and cut.
Cream
Forms the sauce that coats the chicken and keeps the dish moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the flour-thickened sauce taste smooth.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter into a sauce that holds the chicken together.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and soft texture to the creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Make the cream sauce smooth before adding the chicken. Flour lumps form if it is not whisked into the cream and butter fully. Lumps stay in the baked dish and make the sauce grainy. Whisking the flour into the cold or warm cream gradually keeps it even.

Swap the onion

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

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

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