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Chicken with Mushrooms

A dish of diced roast chicken simmered with mushrooms in a milk and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Cover the mushrooms with hot water and cook for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the mushrooms and place them on a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Add enough milk to the cooking liquid to make 1 cup.

  2. Thicken the milk with 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Season with ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and ⅛ teaspoon of white pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the chicken and mushrooms, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Serve on a hot platter.

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

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 into a smooth sauce as it heats and starches swell.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to form a roux for thickening.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with flour and butter. Stirring the flour and butter into the liquid helps prevent lumps. Flour must be fully incorporated and heated so starch swells and thickens the sauce smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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