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Cream Chicken

Cream Chicken is a baked chicken dish with a cream and milk sauce, mushrooms, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Cream 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 the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken until cooked.

  2. Let the chicken cool, then cut it into pieces as for a salad.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream and milk and bring to a boil.

  2. In another pan, melt the butter.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until combined.

  4. Pour the boiling milk and cream mixture over the butter and flour.

  5. Add the grated onion and a little grated nutmeg to the mixture.

  6. Season the mixture generously with black and red pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the chicken pieces and mushrooms with the sauce.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  3. Cover with grated bread crumbs and dot with small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes or until 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.

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. 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the dish.
Cream
Gives the sauce richness and a smooth, thick body.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a sauce that holds the chicken together.
Milk
Thins the cream sauce and adds creamy body.
Mushrooms
Adds earthy flavor and moisture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk and cream mixture over the butter and flour. Adding the hot liquid to the roux and stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

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