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Chicken Asparagus

A baked chicken and asparagus dish in a creamy sauce topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Asparagus

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 tender, then cut it into small dice.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, flour, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to make a sauce.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the sauce over the chicken and asparagus in individual ramekins.

  2. Grate cheese on top of each ramekin.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve warm, perfect for afternoon tea.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 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 bake.
Cream
Forms the rich, moist sauce that binds the dish together.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce as it heats.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream sauce.
Asparagus
Adds tender texture and a vegetable flavor to the filling.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and color.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked in the hot cream long enough to thicken smoothly. Whisking it in gradually prevents lumps, and the sauce should be fully thickened before it is poured over the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, asparagus, cream, flour, pepper, cheese):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, asparagus, cream, flour, pepper, cheese. 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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