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Creamed Chicken

A baked chicken dish with butter, milk, cream, flour, and spices, topped with cracker crumbs.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the shredded chicken, melted butter, milk and cream, flour, salt, pepper, and ginger until well combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  4. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until heated through and the top is golden brown.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 milk and cream into a creamy sauce that holds the chicken together.
Milk and cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding richness and moisture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the sauce.
Shredded chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.

The step that matters

Whisking the flour into the liquid. Flour clumps if added to cold liquid without thorough mixing. Combining it evenly with the milk and cream lets the starch hydrate and thicken the sauce smoothly during baking.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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