Skip to main content
Main

Mushrooms with Chicken

A baked casserole of chicken, sweetbreads, mushrooms, and cream topped with buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Mushrooms with 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 the filling

  1. Boil the chicken and sweetbreads until cooked, then cut into pieces and chop.

  2. Chop the mushrooms and set aside.

  3. In a saucepan, scald the cream, then whisk in the flour and butter until thickened.

  4. Season the mixture lightly with salt and pepper.

  5. Combine the chicken, sweetbreads, and mushrooms with the cream mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a buttered baking dish and top with a layer of buttered bread crumbs.

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

  3. If the dish is too thick after baking, add a little hot cream before serving.

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

Cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving the casserole its moist, rich body.
Flour
Thickens the scalded cream into a sauce that holds the chicken and mushrooms together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat for flavor and smooth texture, and helps the bread crumbs brown.
Chicken
Provides the main cooked meat, adding substance and savory flavor to the casserole.
Sweetbreads
Adds a tender, delicate meat texture that blends into the creamy filling.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and a soft, moist texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Whisking the flour and butter into the scalded cream. Flour must be fully whisked in while the cream is hot so it dissolves and thickens evenly. Lumps stay if it is added carelessly or the mixture is not whisked enough, and the sauce will not coat the filling smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes