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Chicken Hash

A creamy chicken hash made with boiled chicken, milk, cream, stock, butter, flour, and spices, served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, chicken stock, butter, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, onion, cream, and flour.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chicken and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  2. Serve the hash on buttered 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Chicken
Provides the main body and protein of the hash.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce as it cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich flavor to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the flour thickens.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for about 15 minutes. Flour must be cooked long enough at a simmer or boil to thicken the sauce and lose its raw, pasty taste. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps or scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cream, milk, butter, onion, pepper, flour. 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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