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Chicken Cream

Chicken Cream is a steamed quenelle of chicken and bread mixture topped with peas and served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a high border mold and dust it with rice flour.

  2. Make the quenelle mixture soft with cream and fill the mold evenly.

Steam and shape

  1. Steam without boiling until firm, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Turn out the quenelle.

  3. Coat the quenelle evenly with white sauce.

  4. Fill the center of the quenelle with peas.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Bring the oyster liquor and water to a boil.

  2. Thicken the mixture with arrowroot mixed with sherry.

  3. Season the sauce.

  4. Add cream to the sauce.

  5. Garnish the dish with peas.

  6. Pour the sauce around the dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 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

Raw chicken
Forms the main body of the quenelle, setting into a firm, sliceable texture when steamed.
Panard (bread mixture)
Adds body and helps bind the quenelle mixture so it holds its shape.
Small egg
Helps the quenelle mixture set firm as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the mixture.
Oyster liquor
Gives the sauce a briny, savory oyster flavor.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce to a glossy, smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Steam without boiling until firm. Boiling water or a hard simmer can make the egg-based quenelle bubble, puff and turn rough or porous. Gentle steam sets the proteins slowly, giving a smooth, firm texture.

“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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