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To Stew Chickens in Haste

A quick chicken stew thickened with flour, cream, and egg yolk, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Chickens in Haste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and cut the chickens into pieces.

  2. Scald the pieces in hot water without letting them cool.

Cook

  1. Fry the chickens in butter with chopped sweet herbs, white pepper, and salt.

  2. Add boiling water and flour, then stew until the sauce reduces.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce, then add cream and beaten egg yolk.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice over the chickens and serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the main protein and body of the stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while frying, helping the chicken brown.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it stews and reduces.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the finished sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Once the sauce is hot, egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it boils. Add it off the heat or over very low heat, and keep stirring so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour, cream, egg, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour, cream, egg, lemon. 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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