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Steamed Chicken, Stuffed

A whole chicken steamed with a breadcrumb and oyster stuffing, served with a butter-oyster gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steamed Chicken, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dress the chicken as for roasting.

  2. Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and butter, then mix in the oysters.

  3. Bind the legs and wings to the body with tape.

Steam

  1. Place the chicken in a steamer with a tightly fitting lid.

  2. If no steamer is available, use a tin pail with a lid and set it in a pot of cold water.

  3. Heat gradually to a boil and cook for 2 hours after boiling begins.

  4. Check the breast for tenderness after 2 hours; if tender, remove the chicken and keep warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, stir in butter, oyster liquor, flour mixed with cream, and parsley.

  2. Bring to a boil, quickly stir in the beaten egg, season to taste, and pour some over the chicken, serving the rest in a separate 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and body of the dish, cooked gently by steam until tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter in the stuffing, keeping it light and giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the stuffing and the gravy.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the stuffing.
Flour
Thickens the cream and cooking liquid into a smooth gravy.
Beaten egg
Stirred into the hot gravy, it thickens and enriches the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the gravy egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so the beaten egg must be stirred in quickly off the boil to thicken the gravy smoothly rather than scrambling it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, pepper, butter, oyster, flour, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, pepper, butter, oyster, flour, cream. 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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