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Chicken a LA King

A creamy chicken dish with green pepper and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 a LA King

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, mix butter and flour.

  2. Add milk and stir until smooth.

Add the filling and heat

  1. Incorporate diced chicken, green pepper, and mushrooms.

  2. Heat until hot, then place the pan in a water pan.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated in the fat and liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and gives it a creamy texture.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add savoury flavour and a tender, meaty texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and stirring until smooth. Flour must be fully dispersed in the butter and then the milk so its starch thickens the sauce evenly. Adding liquid too fast or stirring too little leaves lumps that cannot be fully smoothed out later.

“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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