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Stewed Chicken

A stew of chicken, mushrooms, sherry, and beef jelly, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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 ↓

Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the salt butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and light yellow.

  3. Add the chicken, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, turning once.

  4. Add the beef jelly, sherry, and fill the pan with mushrooms.

  5. Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes until ready to serve.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and sauce as it cooks, giving the stew body.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Beef jelly
Adds rich body and savory flavor to the cooking liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that deepen the flavor of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture as they soften in the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter. Cooking flour in melted butter until smooth and light yellow removes raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken the sauce evenly without lumps.

“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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