Why it works: Chicken and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,902 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Chicken, Fillet Of, Steamed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the chicken from the bone.
Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Place in a well buttered soup plate.
Steam and serve
Set the plate on top of a saucepan of boiling water.
Cover with another plate or basin.
Cook gently for about 1 hour.
Serve with its own gravy.
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.
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Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the protein that becomes tender and juicy during gentle steaming.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, helping keep the chicken moist in the dish.
The step that matters
Cook gently for about 1 hour. Steaming at a gentle heat cooks the chicken through without drying it out. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and wash away its juices, so keep the water simmering steadily beneath the plate.
“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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