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Cream of Chicken

A creamy chicken dish with sweetbreads, mushrooms, and a butter‑flour roux, baked with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 of 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. Boil and chop the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it reaches boiling point.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and butter until smooth, then add to the boiling cream.

  3. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and top with a layer of bread crumbs.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  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. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth, binding sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Cream
Forms the base of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and body of the dish.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour and butter into the boiling cream. Adding flour directly to hot liquid can form lumps because starch clumps before it disperses. Blending flour with butter first and adding it to boiling cream while whisking helps the starch hydrate evenly and thicken into a smooth sauce.

“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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